Machine operators can often spend the entire day in their machine’s cab. Why not make it as comfortable as possible?
Prinoth—which produces tracked vehicles, snow groomers, crawler carriers for vegetation management, and more—recently redesigned their machines’ cabs to streamline the production interface and enhance operator comfort. In an interview with Equipment World’s Bryan Furnace, Prinoth Product Manager Eric Fatyol highlighted some of the brand-new cab features that will be on display at this year’s ConExpo-Con/Agg in Las Vegas, Nevada.
“We have a trainer seat option as well as storage space under the trainer seat, which will be nice for storing lunches, drinks, and other stuff,” says Fatyol. “The cab will also feature more insulation and a better layout, which will result in a much quieter cab. Tall operators will also notice they’re going to have more legroom when they get in the machine.”
The new cabs also offer a more robust steering console with improved joystick layouts, cruise control, air ride seats and heated seats, an improved sun visor, and fleet management options through Prinoth Connect.
But Fatyol says the best feature of all is the new seven-inch touchscreen display, which can also be operated using knob controls. He says it’s an extremely intuitive upgrade: “It’s going to be a game changer.”
To learn more about Prinoth’s offerings and exciting innovations, listen here to Fatyol’s full interview with Furnace. You can also visit prinoth.com for more information, visit your local dealer to rent or buy, or meet the Prinoth team at one of three booths at this year’s ConExpo.
Prinoth’s Panther lineup will be in the West Hall at W40367, Prinoth and Multi Machine Inc. will be in the Festival lot at F8851 and their Vegetation Management line including the Jarraff by Prinoth products can be seen in the Diamond Lot booth D1015.
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Transcript
Bryan Furnace:
Hi, everybody. Welcome back to Equipment World. I'm your host Bryan, and today we're here talking to Prinoth. They're actually in a bunch of different industries and chances are you've run across one or more of their machines through your career. If you've ever been snowboarding or skiing, and you see some of the snow grooming equipment, some of those are Prinoth machines.
If you've ever been on a dirt job and you've seen one of those track dump trucks that swivels and rotates, chances are you've seen a Prinoth machine. If you're in the forestry industry and you've seen one of those giant crawler units that has the giant mulcher on it, chances are you've seen a Prinoth machine.
They've got their hands in a lot of stuff. Here to talk with us today is Eric from Prinoth, and he's going to give us an idea of what we can expect to see from them at CONEXPO. For people out there who are not necessarily familiar with your product line, could you kind of give us a run through of what industries you guys are in?
Eric Fatyol:
Yeah, so we're split up into three different business segments. So we have the Prinoth Panther, which is the crawler carrier, which has many different applications and we'll get into that a little bit later. But we also have snow grooming, which is a big part of our business, so machines that are used on the ski hills that groom the snow, make it nice to ski on. And then we have what we call vegetation management. We have the grinders, the shredders that would grind up tree stumps, trees, and then we also have another company that's called Jarraff, which is the telescopic boom that would cut right of ways. They also have their own version of a grinding machine. So we're very diverse in our product offering.
Bryan Furnace:
On that note, what can we expect to see at CONEXPO? Are you guys focusing on one particular area or are we going to see a little bit of everything?
Eric Fatyol:
You're going to see a little bit of everything. We're going to have three different booths. So we have our vegetation management booth, which will have all the machines used in the vegetation management side, grinding, cutting for the tree industry. Then we'll have another booth in the West Hall, which will be our Panther booth, and then we'll have another booth. It's basically going to be our dealer rental booth sponsored by Multi Machine.
Bryan Furnace:
I know that, out of the machines, the Panther is the one that we wanted to spend some time on, and that's an awesome machine. The more I've learned about it, the more I'm really impressed at its performance. Can you give the viewers a little bit of an overview of what the Prinoth Panther is and what are some of the advantages you guys bring to the table over some of your competitors?
Eric Fatyol:
One of the advantages is we've been doing this a very long time. It started with the Bombardier Muskeg back in the 1940s, which was really the first ever crawler carrier on the market, and then over the years it evolved. We had many different iterations. What we have today is the Panther lineup. So we basically have a seven machine lineup and we can do anything and everything with these machines. It's basically the Swiss Army knife of a crawler dump truck.
Bryan Furnace:
And that's one of the things that impressed me the most is, to most people, when they think of a crawler dump truck, it's just that. It's just a dump truck. But the more I started getting into your literature and the more examples you guys were sending over, this thing is a platform.
Eric Fatyol:
Absolutely.
Bryan Furnace:
And you put whatever you want on this thing. Could you expound on some of the areas that you guys have used this thing?
Eric Fatyol:
We start out with a dump truck, of course, but it has evolved. So any kind of application you can think about. Power electric business, so a man lift, a digger derrick, forest fighting, concrete mixers, soil stabilizers, the list goes on and on.
Bryan Furnace:
I saw one with a crane on it. It's just nutty, the things you guys have done with this thing.
Eric Fatyol:
Yeah. So we have a business unit that would basically come in and we can offer custom solutions to customers. There's all different kinds of partners we partner with that do different things. So Alltech, Terex, McNeilus, the list goes on and on, and we basically adapt our vehicle to run their equipment.
Bryan Furnace:
When it comes to kind of the base carrier unit, what are some of the competitive advantages you guys bring to the table? With all of that experience, what has that resulted in that really stands out from some of these other carrier units?
Eric Fatyol:
Our biggest claim to fame is our undercarriage. So we use large wheels instead of the smaller wheels setup with the tandem buggy setup. And basically it allows you to have better traction, better stability, and also better off-road capability, because with the way our setup is, that track stays on the ground. It basically hugs the ground. If you're going over a washboard or over a steep incline, instead of having that teeter-totter effect of the machine, actually it hugs the ground as it goes over that different terrain.
Bryan Furnace:
Interesting. So not only are you getting all of that track, you're keeping that track on the ground instead of having it raised up in the air, but that's also, from a comfort standpoint, that's huge.
Eric Fatyol:
Yes. We have an automatic track tensioner, so there's no maintenance, no daily checks on our undercarriage. It's just a great setup. It's pretty much bulletproof as far as no checks every day. It just works really, really well. Very reliable for the customer.
Bryan Furnace:
I know there's some new features that you guys are pretty excited about coming out on this unit. What are some of the new features we can expect to see at CONEXPO?
Eric Fatyol:
Yeah, so we already have a very comfortable cab, but we have a new cab and new user interface to basically make the operator more comfortable. They're in there all day long. So things like an air ride seat, and you'll have an option of a heated seat as well. Cruise control where the operator can basically just set the speed and let the machine do its work. That works really great when you're in a spreading application, a soil stabilizer, those type of applications where you want to maintain a constant speed and then the operator doesn't have to be up and down on the throttle pedal.
A new seven-inch touch screen or knob control, like a jog style screen for the operator. Easily go through the menus and go through the different functionalities of the machine. We're going to have Prinoth red grab rails. So anywhere the operator needs to grab ahold of to get into the cab, it's very visible. They can tell where they need to grab because of the red handrails. We're going to change up our joystick design on our rotators. So instead of having it on the left-hand side on your armrest, it's going to be located on the right-hand console. Very comfortable for the operator.
We're going to have a new sun visor that works very well, more robust steering console, which is much nicer. And then we also are going to have a trainer seat option and as well as storage under the trainer seat, which will be very nice for storing lunches and drinks and stuff like that. The cab's going to be a good bit quieter, more insulation, better layout, which resulted in a much quieter cab. Improved legroom, so when your real tall operators get in the machine, they're going to notice they're going to have more legroom in the machine. And then we also have Prinoth Connect Fleet Management options. So telematics to offer the customer. They can manage their fleet and see what's going on a daily basis.
Bryan Furnace:
Out of all of those features, what are you most excited about that's going to be over there at CONEXPO to show off?
Eric Fatyol:
I'm very excited about the new user interface, the display. It's going to be a game changer. It's very nice, very intuitive. My second to that would be the seat. The seat makes all the difference in the operator and them running the machine.
Bryan Furnace:
You mentioned a little earlier, and we kind of bounced over it, you guys run these in a variety of sizes. So what kind of sizes are we talking about as far as quantities that they can haul?
Eric Fatyol:
So we go from a T6 all the way to a T22. Our most popular units are our rotators, so we offer the T7R and the T14R in the rotators and the 14R is our flagship. That's the machine we sell the most of. I don't know if you've seen our brochure, but we show, in the brochure, some lake erosion projects in Lake Michigan where they're actually dumping big, large boulders out. Customer doesn't have to back up, turnaround. They can just spin that machine and dump the product where they need to lay it at.
Bryan Furnace:
Now, if I recall correctly, you don't have to dump straight in line. You can dump it 90 degrees perpendicular to the tracks?
Eric Fatyol:
That's exactly right. That is the nice part about our rotators. It has the same stability if you can dump in whichever way.
Bryan Furnace:
That's fantastic. What kind of capacity do you have on that machine?
Eric Fatyol:
14 tons.
Bryan Furnace:
And then I'm assuming your 22 is going to handle 22 tons of material?
Eric Fatyol:
Yeah, T22 is more of a power-electric machine. That's for the power-electric business, but we go up to a T16 in the dumpers. T16's a straight frame machine. So T6, then we go to a T7R rotator, T8 straight frame machine, T12, T14R, then T16. So the R, of course, stands for the rotator.
Bryan Furnace:
Well, that being said, if people want to learn more about these machines, where can they go and who can they speak with to kind of get a little better idea of what you guys have?
Eric Fatyol:
You can go to www.prinoth.com, is our website, and you can actually reach out to some of us there. Send a message. We have a very intuitive website.
Bryan Furnace:
Well, thank you so much for the time, Eric, and I appreciate all the information.
Eric Fatyol:
Absolutely, Bryan. I look forward to seeing you at CONEXPO.
Bryan Furnace:
Well, thank you again to Eric for coming on the show to give us an idea of what we can expect to see from Prinoth at CONEXPO. As he stated, make sure you check out all three of their booths. There's going to be some really exciting stuff there. And also stay tuned after CONEXPO because we're going to have another interview where we actually do a walk around of some of their machines at CONEXPO Live. So, that being said, thanks for watching and we'll catch you guys next time.