CASE Construction Equipment has introduced an all-new mulcher-head attachment. Compatible with CASE skid steers and compact track loaders, the attachment ships standard with high flow (HF) configuration, and can be easily converted at the dealership for use with enhanced high flow (EHF) hydraulics systems on 90-HP+ machines.

Ideal for land clearing, site prep, right-of-way and trail maintenance applications, the mulcher features a variable two-speed motor that automatically adjusts the motor displacement to maximize rotor speed and torque to changing material loads.

Wheel loaders today offer a number of options as it relates to powertrain components. While size, horsepower and bucket capacities drive the initial loader identification/purchase phase, the next level of consideration — where decisions are made about transmission, axle and differential options — has a significant effect on long-term performance, productivity and total cost of ownership.

Even in the demo phase, operating a loader that is not the right match of powertrain to application and ground conditions can sway a purchase decision one way or the other, only to surprise the machine’s owner when they get it into real world conditions. Worse yet: powertrain options not properly matched to the site can lead to excessive wear on tires and components, downtime, and lifetime maintenance costs much higher than they should be. It’s also worth noting that operators should be properly trained in machine operation as it relates to the powertrain options selected.

CASE Construction Equipment, and heavy equipment dealer Titan Machinery, donated the use of skid steers and compact track loaders for wildfire cleanup in Costilla County, Colorado as part of Operation Freedom Fire. The Spring Creek Fire spread to more than 100,000+ acres this summer — 70 Team Rubicon volunteers logged almost 4,000 service hours and saved the local community an estimated $115,000 in cleanup efforts.

“It’s been a particularly active wildfire season for Team Rubicon this year, and our dealers continue to step up to support the efforts and help these communities move back towards rebuilding,” says Michel Marchand, vice president — North America, CASE Construction Equipment. “The heavy equipment program with Team Rubicon continues to grow and evolve, and these efforts are invaluable to communities hit hard by disaster.”

The CASE CX145D SR excavator has been named one of the Contractors’ Top 50 New Products of 2018 by Equipment Today magazine.

“The products recognized by the annual Contractors’ Top 50 New Products awards represent what contractors are seeking most to boost profitability on their construction projects,” says Becky Schultz, Equipment Today editor. “The high level of interest they generated from Equipment Today readers and visitors to ForConstructionPros.com demonstrates that these are products contractors feel are capable of improving performance, efficiency and productivity on their jobsites.”

CASE Construction Equipment, and heavy equipment dealer Southeastern Equipment, donated the use of compact track loaders and excavators for blight removal in East Cleveland, Ohio as part of Operation Ray Chapman. “The Beast”, a specially outfitted CASE SV340 skid steer, was also deployed on the operation with a forestry mulching head to assist in removing years of overgrown brush.

Equipment for the operation was supported out of Southeastern’s Brunswick and Mentor, Ohio locations.

CASE Construction Equipment announced that its CASE SiteWatch™ telematics portal is now aligned with the new Association of Equipment Management Professionals (AEMP) 2.0/ISO-15143-3 standard. The AEMP-compatible portal is populated with data provided by equipment manufacturers in a standardized format to ensure a practical and intuitive user experience for the contractor/equipment owner.

This allows owners of a mixed fleet to access the telematics data of all their AEMP 2.0 equipment in a single place, gaining efficiency in running their operation. CASE equipment owners can activate the new AEMP API from the CASE SiteWatch web portal, where they can now monitor more elements in shorter intervals, view more data, and monitor new types of parameters related to fuel, idle times, engine load and speed.

Sun Valley—a quiet resort town in Southern Idaho that offers everything from camping, hiking, and mountain biking to world-class cross-country skiing and other wintertime sports—is home to a multibillion-dollar tourist economy. The scenic mountain town has expanded steadily over the years—hotels, theaters and other commercial building projects continue to invigorate the valley, while condo developments and high-end luxury subdivisions continue up the hillsides unabated. Sun Valley is also home to Burks Excavation, LLC. Burks Excavation was founded in 1996 and has played a role in the development of this scenic mountain town ever since.

“We do a lot of custom homes, site work, commercial projects, subdivision work, water/sewer infrastructure, wetland projects,” explains Bo Burks, owner of Burks Excavation. “We also do site prep for paving and concrete work.”

True total cost of ownership (TCO) is determined by factoring in everything that goes into operating that machine over its lifetime: initial purchase price, fuel costs, maintenance costs, utilization, organizational overhead, resale value, etc.

When you talk about total cost of ownership for rental companies, it has to play into their rental rate calculation as well as the return on investment, or return on asset, more so than just the purchase price of the machine. So if one brand has an advantage—and it may be something as simple as Brand A’s oil change interval is 500 hours, and Brand B’s is 2,000 hours—if you start extrapolating that over the duration of ownership, that starts to add up. Specifically for the rental side, all of those costs have to roll up into a profitable rental rate. Then you look at taxes and depreciation and retail value, auction value, things like that.

A thumb attachment can dramatically increase the versatility and performance capabilities of a compact excavator. A relatively inexpensive investment, a thumb can allow an excavator to handle a variety of high-precision material handling, land clearing, utility and road building applications. Below are a few quick tips on buying, operating and maintaining a thumb attachment for a mini excavator.

Buying
In terms of buying and spec-ing a thumb for a mini excavator, the most basic and important thing to consider is that it has to match the bucket. It’s not as simple as taking a thumb and putting it on a machine with any bucket—they have to match. Depending on the size of the thumb and the size of the machine, thumb attachments for mini excavators typically have two tines.

Phoenix is the kind of environment that manufacturers have in mind when they test heavy equipment — temperatures above 100 degrees, tough digging conditions, and a housing market that has rebounded and is keeping contractors and their equipment busy 24/7.

The Universal Group is an underground utilities contractor in Phoenix that is benefiting from the current state of commercial, non-residential and residential building construction in the market. The company specializes in utility excavation – both dry and wet – and runs a fleet of five CASE CX210D excavators supported by local CASE dealer Titan Machinery.