SUPERBOOMS
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INTERNATIONAL
MARCH-APRIL 2014
easier. Terex AWP is concerned with the
similarity of the designs.
“The X-chassis provides a significant
advantage …. over extending axles,” Allen says.
In February, Terex AWP sent a “very
respectful letter,” Allen says, to JLG “saying
that it looks like their [1850SJ chassis] covers
the same technology [as our SX-180’s].”
Talking to
AI,
JLG president Frank
Nerenhausen, commented, “There isn’t really
much of a story here, we have responded
privately to Genie’s letter and, in short, we
stand behind our design.We have looked at
Genie’s patents and we are confident that the
1850’s design does not infringe on any of their
patent claims.”Mr Nerenhausen adds that as
far as he is concerned the matter is closed.
JLG filed its own patent in September 2013
for its X-styled chassis. “We have patents
pending so we are confident we haven’t
infringed on any patents,” adds, Alan Loux, vice
president of marketing for JLG.
Genie launched the SX-180 at bauma last
year.The model has been well documented
since then in the pages of this magazine and
on the
AI
website.The unit has a 180 ft vertical
reach and 80 ft horizontal reach.The 8 ft by
3 ft working platform has an unrestricted
capacity of 750 pounds. It has a 180 degree
rotating jib.
Who is next?
So, following the launch of these two monsters,
are other manufacturers gearing up for the
production of a 190 m boom, or at least a
model in that height range? The answer,
generally, seems to be no.
Skyjacks’ biggest telescopic boom is the 72 ft
working height, or 66 ft platform height SJ66T.
Brad Boehler, Skyjack president, says he is
more interested in filling out the smaller boom
line first. Talking about the two superbooms
from JLG and Terex AWP, he adds, “Maybe
they will create a market space, but it will be a
while before we get to 100 ft. It will be a few
years before we are competing in that market.”
At the moment the company is working
on an 80 ft platform height model. Before
that the company will be working on a small
articulated boom, and then an 80 ft articulated
boom. “Products have to be safe and meet
requirements. It becomes more-and-more
complicated the bigger you get.”
Apart from the control system and boom
length, there is the ground pressure to take into
consideration, particularly if you have close
to the same machine dimensions as smaller
machines. “In certain configurations you may
have 50% of the load on one wheel, and you
need to be aware of the fact it could punch
through the floor,” adds Mr Boehler.
Paul Kreutzwiser, Skyjack’s senior product
manager, expands on the theme, with the
point that such a large boom cannot be used
as a ‘day-to-day’ jobsite machine. “You start to
see a point at which truck mounts and AWPs
overlap. A boom has certain advantages over
a truck, but trucks have others. It’s not about
height, it’s about the carrying capacity at
outreach; the working envelope performance.
Mr Kreutzwiser continues, “The whole idea
of a self-propelled boom is that you can go
from jobsite to jobsite; that’s a limitation for
big booms because you cannot drive them to
the next site.”
He adds, “A lot of applications for these
machines will come out of innovative use,
which is more about future prospects than what
they can do now.”
Alexander Saubot, president of Haulotte
Group, is also adamant that his company will
not see a superboom to match the likes of the
SX-180 or 1850SJ anytime soon. He says, “I
don’t believe that we should spend that much
money on that type of machine.We will
monitor how many they sell.”
Snorkel, on the other hand, may have
something in the pipeline. Don Ahern,
Snorkel’s new majority owner, told
AI
that
it would be looking at the very large boom
segment over the next few months with a view
to potentially coming up with a design.The
emphasis, he said, would be on outreach, rather
than a maximum working height.
Søren Rosenkrantz, COO at European
rental major Riwal spoke on the subject of big
booms in October last year at the Europltform
conference in Istanbul, Turkey. He defined a
big boom as anything in that category above 26
m or 80 ft that uses ropes to extend telescopic
sections and has an extendable base for stability.
Concerning big booms, he comments, “As an
industry we have a shared responsibility to
make and use these machines safe.”
Concerning booms at the 185 ft level,
he adds, “I think we have reached some of
the problem areas as far as transport and
manoeuvring of these machines is concerned. I
think we are at a maximum size at the moment,
unless we start using other components, like
fibreglass instead of steel to reduce weight.”
AI
The UK’s Health and Safety Executive (HSE)
issued a safety alert in February stating that
all Genie Z-135/70 booms must be calibrated
correctly and those that have not been should be
removed from service.
The advice comes during the HSE’s
investigation into the collapse of a Z-135/70
belonging to Kimberly Access at one of its depots
close to London, UK, in June last year. The
operator died as a result of the incident.
It follows a statement from the HSE in January,
in which it confirmed it was currently basing its
investigations on the calibration of the machine
in question.
“The emerging findings from the HSE indicate
that the operational stability of a Z-135/70 may
be compromised by the incorrect measurement
of the boom angle sensors,” says the latest
statement. It adds that to minimise the risks of
overturn, the machine must be configured as
per manufacturer’s settings, as prescribed by
the manufacturer in their Safety Bulletin 130005
dated 29th July 2013. In a separate statement,
Kimberly said the safety alert did not go far
enough. It said it had received expert advice that
the addition of an electromechinical safeguard, at
minimal cost, could eliminate the risk of error.
BOOM COLLAPSE UPDATE
The Genie SX-180
from Terex AWP at
the manufacturer’s
Moses Lake plant in
Washington state, USA.
The Genie SX-180 at full height, as taken by the
editor of this magazine during a visit to Moses
Lake in January.
