Forestry mulchers are many contractors’ go-to attachment for heavy-duty land clearing.
On this episode of The Dirt, we hear from one of the top manufacturers in the field. FAE USA product manager Lee Smith gives us a rundown of the company’s attachments for compact track loaders, skid steers, excavators and PTO tractors. It also has self-propelled tracked mulching machines and even a remote-control model that not only mulches but grinds stumps as well.
Smith explains how FAE stands out in the busy market and details the company’s Sonic technology, which delivers the most productive rotor speed and torque simultaneously to boost productivity, he says.
So to learn more about FAE’s mulchers and to find out what’s coming from the attachment manufacturer, check out the latest episode of The Dirt.
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In This Episode:
- 00:00 – FAE Forestry Mulchers
- 00:27 – FAE Forestry Products
- 01:27 – What’s Unique About FAE Mulchers?
- 03:11 – FAE Sonic Technology
- 07:01 – Sonic & Mulcher Upgrades
- 11:05 – Final Thoughts
00;00;00;12 - 00;00;26;21
Bryan Furnace
Today we're here to talk about forestry mulchers, but we're talking to one of the powerhouse brands in the forestry mulcher game, FAE. Today we're talking to you about their forestry mulcher lineup and what's coming down the pipeline.
00;00;26;23 - 00;00;30;11
Bryan Furnace
Well, Lee, thank you so much for being on The Dirt today. I really appreciate your time.
00;00;30;14 - 00;00;32;08
Lee Smith
Hey, thanks for having me. Looking forward to it.
00;00;32;11 - 00;00;39;24
Bryan Furnace
So for those not familiar with for you, can you give us just kind of of a quick rundown of the product line and what product offerings you guys have?
00;00;39;26 - 00;01;16;27
Lee Smith
Yeah. So far by far is probably the most broad range manufacturer in our industry by a long shot because we are into several different areas of this type of equipment. We're into the compact track loaders, the excavator market, dedicated units, PTO tractors, as well as we make our own line of dedicated track machines. And now we're also making our line of remote-controlled mulchers that also have other functions such as stunt grinding and mowing and just recently, we jumped into the construction field by coming out with our own line of asphalt milling machines that go on compact track loaders as well as excavators.
00;01;16;27 - 00;01;25;03
Lee Smith
So if you can see it's a pretty broad range, but by far I feel like our bread and butter is still in the compact track loader and the excavator market.
00;01;25;10 - 00;01;38;04
Bryan Furnace
Interesting. So what would you say specifically now more on the mulcher side of the game. What would you say differentiates for you from some of the competitors out in the market? I know there's a lot of mulchers out there.
00;01;38;06 - 00;01;55;28
Lee Smith
There's a lot of mulchers and it seems like every time I turn on my computer, there's one more popping in from somewhere. So it is a, it is a it's a market is getting busier, quicker. I think some of the things that differentiate us is, you know, by far I feel like we make the most quality products on the market, but we always going to be the cheapest.
00;01;55;28 - 00;02;13;02
Lee Smith
Probably not. But I think we've become known for our durability, our production and simply our maintenance friendly units that we produce. You know, we try to look at the machine from the aspect of the end user and the dealer from top to bottom. So if we make it easy to maintain, we got a better chance of it being maintained.
00;02;13;02 - 00;02;31;13
Lee Smith
But then on top of all that, you know, something that we've always done that a lot of our competitors don't do, especially some of the newer competitors, is we support the product from start to finish and then all throughout the middle. You know, we have a broad dealer network that we try to always keep well-trained up to date with our product.
00;02;31;13 - 00;02;49;10
Lee Smith
We have a full staff in Forestry Branch that handles our service, our warranty, our product. Guys travel like myself, travel United States, making sure that our customers and our dealers are up to speed on all of our product. And then, of course, you know all our support staff and our territory managers who are also spread throughout the US.
00;02;49;13 - 00;03;00;03
Lee Smith
So I feel like when people know they're buying FAE, they're not buying a unit that maybe is just sold in the United States. They're buying a unit. They're sold and supported inside the United States.
00;03;00;06 - 00;03;20;01
Bryan Furnace
Yeah. And I will attest to that. We actually have one of your mulchers. It is one of our favorite attachments that we run on that machine. And to kind of move over into the next question here, one of the things that stood out to me was the Sonic technology that is on that head. Can you talk about what that sonic technology is and how it benefits the customer on the mulcher?
00;04;02;06 - 00;04;22;23
Lee Smith
Absolutely. So we came out with Sonic several years ago. I almost hate to say this, but I feel like I need to. When it first came out, we were actually going to call it Mario. But as an Italian company, we quickly realized that we're probably a little bit too much. So we changed the name over to Sonic. So, you know, Sonic is the time and today is still one of the industry leading technologies.
00;04;22;24 - 00;04;45;04
Lee Smith
There's a lot of manufacturers out there now that are trying to duplicate it, obviously, which you can see. But we came up with Sonic years ago because that's how he was also one of the first manufacturers to start using the two-speed motor, which means we had a motor that could be adjusted for the carrier and can make the carrier more productive, as well as protect the carrier from excessive stalling and excessive downtime.
00;04;45;06 - 00;05;24;16
Lee Smith
However, with the VTI, you're talking about min max on off so your min displacement or your max displacement, meaning you're either going to be high speed, low torque, or you're going to be lower speed, high torque. And there's really no range in the middle with the sonic. We took into account a lot of different things. And instead of just having like, minimum displacement and a maximum displacement, we're now able to read like rotor speed and some other things, and we're able to continually be moving the swash plate of that motor that will allow the operator to not only stall less, but when he does stall, he will recover probably 60% faster.
00;05;24;17 - 00;05;48;09
Lee Smith
It's way more productive than the old unit because like I said earlier, with the VTI, the technology is when you're a minimum displacement, you're at full rotor speed with low torque. But when you're a max displacement, now you're at high torque or low speed. The Sonic actually tries to do the exact opposite and tries to give you the most productive rotor speed and the most productive torque at the same time.
00;05;48;11 - 00;06;10;17
Lee Smith
It allows you to have the inertia and the power all in one swoop, so that's why it's able to be more productive and also recover a lot faster. So it's been a really good technology. We've always had it in our hands over the last probably 6 or 7 years, and also our excavator heads, but now we're actually starting to put it in our dedicated prime tech units as well as our remote-control units.
00;06;10;20 - 00;06;41;08
Bryan Furnace
That Sonic technology, for those who haven't experienced it, but are familiar with running a traditional mulcher head for us was night and day. It doesn't compare to anything else. It it is incredible how much longer you can stay in the material with the head under load, without the head bogging. And then initially there were multiple times where we would pull out of the material, thinking that the head had spooled down and we really needed to recover, when in fact it was still going just fine.
00;06;41;09 - 00;06;59;03
Bryan Furnace
It was just it had gotten quiet enough that you didn't hear the roar like you do initially, but it was still absolutely being productive in that material. And I will say you're 50 to 60% production boost is is 100% accurate. We noticed that within about ten minutes of having that head out in the field, it was it was incredible.
00;06;59;03 - 00;07;01;02
Bryan Furnace
The difference it made.
00;07;01;04 - 00;07;19;26
Lee Smith
Yeah. And you know when it when it when the Sonic's working correctly I agree. You know with everything you said, and it's been like I said, it's been a really good technology for us to come to market with. Now that being said, like anything, there is somewhat a downside. And the downside of having electronic based technology is if you lose power, you're in trouble.
00;07;19;28 - 00;07;39;22
Lee Smith
So you know, with all that said, now we're trying to make Sonic even better. There's a lot of things that have come out on the Sonic since you guys first started using it. And if you don't mind, I'll just go into a couple of the things that we've done and a couple of things that we're looking to do, and some of those things are now what we do is we put a Wi-Fi antenna on all of our units.
00;07;39;22 - 00;07;59;14
Lee Smith
So every sonic unit now has a Wi-Fi antenna, and we have an app where now you can actually monitor the sonic why it's working. You can actually calibrate the Sonic through your phone instead of having to get out, hit the button and get back in and all that good stuff. And you can also do interesting. Yeah, yeah.
00;07;59;14 - 00;08;20;16
Lee Smith
And you can also to a certain point now you can troubleshoot the Sonic. So if you go to calibrate and for some reason the calibration doesn't go through correctly, then you can go look through your troubleshooting section of your app, and it'll tell you if one of the major components has not done what it's supposed to do, or if it's sent something that wouldn't allow it to calibrate.
00;08;20;21 - 00;08;44;00
Lee Smith
Interesting for us, that's been a real big booster because the cool thing is, if a guy has a new Sonic and he's out there working and he starts having issues, he doesn't have to call the dealer to get a truck to come out. He can just basically save, copy of his calibration report, send it to his dealer, and his dealer can basically figure out what's going on without even leaving the office.
00;08;44;07 - 00;09;04;13
Lee Smith
Wow. Saves a lot of downtime, and it also saves a lot of troubleshooting time. Those Wi-Fi antennas are retrofit able. So anybody that has an older Sonic that wanted to add a Wi-Fi antenna, it's a very inexpensive kit you can purchase, and it just plugs right in. And then you can open the app, and you can use the app like one of our current models.
00;09;04;17 - 00;09;36;01
Lee Smith
Couple other things we've done is through longevity testing. We've realized that maybe some of our harnesses weren't meant for all the different temperature and, areas of the United States, whether it be wet, cold, hot, dry or whatever. So we've really beefed up all our internal and external harnesses where, you know, they're not near sensitive to moisture, heat, dirt and they're a lot harder to tear out because, as you know, that 14 pin hanging out on the front of that skid steer is almost like a target for any branch.
00;09;36;01 - 00;09;37;00
Lee Smith
It's coming back.
00;09;37;03 - 00;09;40;20
Bryan Furnace
It's it's magic how well it finds branches.
00;09;40;22 - 00;10;02;05
Lee Smith
Yeah, I agree, I agree. So so yeah, those are some of the things that we've done. We're looking right now to, to do some more, improvements to the Sonic and to the app. I don't really have a lot of those details right now, but you know, like I said, we came out with the Sonic years and years ago, and some of our competitors are now starting to try to copy the technology a little bit.
00;10;02;05 - 00;10;34;17
Lee Smith
So, you know, that's being us. We feel like we need to go ahead and reboot and come out with the next level and still be the leader in the market in that technology. But, you know, it's really been a good software for us. And a lot of our carrier suppliers would also talk about, you know, how good it is, because by not stalling a hydraulic system that's going 42 gallons a minute, but not stalling five, six, seven times an hour, you know, you're really saving heat buildup and adding a lot of longevity to the hydraulic components and the engine of that carrier.
00;10;34;17 - 00;10;46;22
Lee Smith
So it's a it's been a good, a good successful, software for us as well as our carrier suppliers. So but yeah, so we've done a little bit with it, and we are hoping to continue to improve it.
00;10;46;29 - 00;10;59;03
Bryan Furnace
Well that's awesome. I look forward to the new improvements. I look forward to seeing, you know, the boost to production that that are going to come with that. It's just the fact of the matter, when you guys improve that system even more, you're going to get more production out of those units. So I do look forward to that.
00;10;59;03 - 00;11;01;05
Bryan Furnace
We'll leave. Thank you so much for your time today.
00;11;01;07 - 00;11;05;05
Lee Smith
Oh, thank you for having me. It was a pleasure. And look forward to talking to you soon.
00;11;05;07 - 00;11;20;25
Bryan Furnace
Well, thank you again to Lee and for coming on the show to talk to us about the forestry and ultra lineup that Farley has to offer. As you can see, these are awesome tools, and they are all about production on the job. As always, I hope this helped you and your business. We'll catch you on the next episode of The Dirt.
