Back in one piece

Once the wheels were on, drive hooked up, batteries and controllers in place, it was time to re-install the lifitng ram, hydraulic pump, main boom and platform.

And here it is:

Still with temporary wiring.

Hydraulic power pack in place.

Temporary speaker cable seems to be holding up :)

Test control panel. The final unit will be more robust, waterproof and will have some guards around the outside to stop the joysticks from being accidentally knocked.

The slow/fast switch is meant to reduce the machine's speed by half. It doesn't. At best it drops maybe 10%. That's probably because once moving, the motors aren't having to exert much torque.

And finally, the view from the driver's seat.

The machine works well, the only niggle at the moment is speed. Running at 48v the machine is too fast and very difficult to manoeuvre precisely. At 36v the travelling speed is about right, but is still to fast and jerky for manoeuvring. 24v is much better for manoeuvring, particularly when the boom is up, but makes travelling tediously slow.

So I need to work out some way of switching between the 24v and 36v speeds...