Tiltrotator at work -benefits & drawbacks 

We bought a Encon tilt rotator last year for one of our Kubota 057-4's. For what we have used it for (home demolition, clearing, excavation, and utilities work) it has been a very worthwhile investment. It's not perfect for every situation, but I find myself jumping on the rotator machine almost every time I need an excavator.

I live in Sweden and I can tell you that no one (literally no one) with an excavator here are digging without a tiltrotator. The most people use engcon which doesn't have that hoses you need to remove before de-attaching the rotator :)

I don't have the rotating version of this attachment but I do have the 90 degree swing attachment from Bobcat for my 4 ton excavator. Yes, you loose break out, probably about a third with a 36 bucket but the versatility is so worth it. I just bring the reg bucket for the digging and then switch to the swing to grade and swail perfectly, no shovels required. Thanks Stan for the info, now I have my next attachment to strive for.

I live next to the inventors of this, "Rototilt" in northern Sweden.

Finally. Welcome to the 90's americans 😧

I’m in Seattle and I ordered an Engcon for my mini a week ago, excited to get it and have it installed! EC204, 3 buckets and grapple

In Sweden we call it rotortilt the other way around. And its true its been around here for as long as i know and almost every excavator has one or two attachments with the rotortilt function

Tv show idea... "Contractor Rescue" same take as "Bar Rescue" but you come in and assess the business and come up with a plan for success.

I’m 16 and we got a little one of those from Home Depot to fix a pipe and with in a hour of dig o was wiping in it and it was so fun

This would have been so handy to have on our old backhoe to dig a French drain. I could see so many uses for this.

Engcon is all im gonna say no need to get out and deal with hoses

Buying a steelwrist was the best thing I have ever bought.

I like how Stan change the definition of " a tick " from Minnesota terminology to Dirt Money!! Lol I'm from Minnesota and never heard of " a tick " until I seen Stan!

Finally you made a video about this! Great! That one tho looks a bit undersized for that machine, we north europeans like to use bit heavier dyty ones. It´s kinda funny watching American excavator videos, i´ts like going back to the 80's here in Finland, no "full sized" wheeled excavators in city areas, no tiltrotators, no 3D systems ect. You can call it maximizing the reliability, but to me its like comparing an axe to a chainsaw. Just waaaaaay more easy and efficient. No offence tho! :) Great example of what i mean: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-wAUyI9rG-Bw.html

It's gonna take quite alot more than a month to get straight up effecient with a tilty, learning the buttons dosent take long, but getting to a point of being effecient with it takes alot longer. In Denmark we say to you are not effecient with one of thees till you reach the point of no longer having to think about what you have to do and how you wanna get that done, and one does not just learn that i a week :) Sorry for the reletivly bad English ;)

Interesting. I doubt he's operated an excavator his entire life.

Stan, have you seen a Huddig? It blew my mind the first time I watched a video of one. I think it was at a trade show in Europe, and it was so nimble, they were doing food prep with it. And it was all by remote as well.

I have been waiting so long for you to do a video on the tiltrotator. I want to see you do one on B wise dump trailers the ultimate dump trailer

I got my first indeksator rotortilt R6 in 1999 on a Hitachi EX215 😁👍. I have steelwrist on my volvo 235EL now🤟😎

Can't live without it

Love the Chanel and the intro

Can't live without it!!

Dirt Ninja seems to love his tilt rotator!

Tied in with a Trimble 2D Flex system, yes, it most certainly is worth it.

Well done for catching on , we use rototilt in the UK

the angle of attack you can get far outweighs the brute power the machine can output. imho

Rotortilt is almost a must i would say

There’s another attachment you can get it’s a flat broom about three meters wide it’s brilliant for road works clean ups

Looks like a big kids playground!

Love the video, thanks for sharing some great info

I tell you what, if the powerball pays off tonight, I'm buyin' one of those Steel Wrist's for sure!

Just to clarify a few things. Steelwrist hasnt been around for 20+ years the tiltrotator has. Indexator and rototilt pioneered the product in the 80:s. Not 100% of the excvataors in sweden uses them. I would say 9/10 in the 5>32ton class. Larger excavators ie EC380> dont use them. There is one EC380 on Gotland in sweden wich uses on but thats a 32t class tiltrotator beacause no1 makes one to truly work with 40t class machines.

Tbh encon, steelwrist, indexator, they all have drawbacks and benefits, but ive been operating excavators about 12 years now and never without a tiltrotator, its a sweet addition BUT the bad part is that if you never learned to run an excavator without a tiltrotator, you are crippled if its breaking or for some reason you dont have one avaible, so rather run without one for a year if possible and THEN learn with one.

I priced out a Rototilt r2 today for a 6 ton mini $30,000!!!

Stan, what are your thoughts on wheeled excavators? They are popular in Europe and hardly used in the US.

So Stan ,the US finally got the knuckle well we have always had a machine that does what your saying it called a Gradall

My dad has one its a steelwrist and encon they are actually really strong to Stan you should get one for your 7 tone excavator

Now check out the rotastar at a&d equipment

I've been digging with Rototilt and Steelwrist my whole career, I feel like the quality isn't quite there yet on Steelwrist yet. And I did not like the shape of that grading bucket, the "back" of it was too much forward towards the machine wich made the bottom and edge end up super long. With that you lose even more "break out force" or what ever you call it. I know they do that cause you wanna be able to see and use the grapple better, but it sucks and I almost always take off my bucket before I lift something down in the trench anyway. But there's a ton of bucket companys here in Sweden that tries to make them better and better, both shapes and strength.

I'd like to try one of those with a flail mower on the boom

I've seen one of those grapples give out sweets to kids at a show I was at

My uncle had a rotortilt on his old Åkerman H7 back in the middle-late 90s when i was a kid! I just cant wrap my head around why this still isn't a thing in the US? Americans are usually quick to adapt to progress and many times they create that progress?

would've been nice to see the controls from in the cab...

The only draw back is you did a review on a steel wrist.

35 years ago there was the Gradall not quite the rotator but had the tilt capability...I'm sure it could have been modified to do the same back then

We just got a tilt coupler for our cat 305.5, not a rotator wish we'd got one of those cause that'd really make it even more versatile. Already I've noticed several drawbacks. With the thumb, which had to be modified so it's now kind of an s shape instead of just straight, so it hangs down like a foot or so from the dipper. So now you can't curl the bucket even close to all the way up. That makes loading trucks with it a real pain. I spilled a LOT of crap loading the last few days, where I usually have very little if any cleanup around the truck. Definitely noticed quite a big loss of breakout force, probably makes a bigger difference on the smaller machine. I'm just not sure about it yet, I was really excited waiting on cat to install it but have been kinda let down so far. Haven't gotten a chance to use it for what it's meant for but that should change this week. I also wanna see how big of a difference it makes in hard clay and rock. Another thing, it's dramatically changed the throw of the bucket. It's taken some practice to get back in rythym. But just having the quick coupler probably makes it worth the drawbacks.lol

Yet another great video, Stan. You're the greatest at showing equipment at its best.

Great video. What kind of cost is that looking to set up I wonder. Only down fall is all our original attachments you have now won’t work.

you recommended an excavator as the top landscaping tool, however, how about a video that compares skid steer, backhoe and excavator and if you get the chance to have a look at the JCB 1CX/1CXT let me know your thoughts

This is a good video I can tell before watching it lol

Great vid

We have Rototilts , best thing we did

Nice in cabin footage. Do you use a gopro for in cab filming or something else? Thanks

Check out dirt Ninja hes had one for like a year now, he has a endcon they have the hoses that attach themselves

Gravelpits don't use rototilt here. But every other exavator has them.

Tiltrotators are great. But you need to think about fuel economy aswell. Having the tiltrotator on while trenching si not good for fuel economy. It is a lot of exstra wight on the boom and the machine works more to move the dirt with it on. And it puts unnesesary wear on the tiltrotator aswell.

Gradal (sp) has been around in the states along time

I'm surprised letsdig18 hasn't gone to that place.

One thing about tiltrotators, never ever ever use them digging in big rocks. You will kill the tilrotator. Ohh and dont use them for leverage for dealing with frost, that also will kill the rotator

Don't use these unless you can afford one cause you WILL want one!

Check out Duckgirl 86 to see a what a good operator can do with a rotator.

This guy can’t even get a decent hydraulic thumb and a Wedge quick-change on this cheap little Daewoo, why would he buy this apparatus. Does he even run equipment? All I see is a bunch of hot air on how he makes and loses money and filming himself in a gym. I see a lot of personal ego.

How much to install on an 8500 pound or 4 ton machine? Sany 35 U?

That would definitely take a little getting used to

saw th gas company using this white digging in the roadway

I want to buy a similar one, please how much?

Steelwrist stole engcon's hard work, all of their attachments are exact clones of the original engcon ones

Search: hydrema 926e with rototilt demonstration. On RU-vid that’s an engcon

Use a tilt rotator everyday can’t image not using it.

I'd want the bucket edges to be straight rather than S shaped for ease of stocking/storing.fixing wear strips to replace the cutting edges. On a normal bucket the flat edge along the front is the primary wear surface but on a tilt rotate you've got three front edges!

Use engcon!

Rototilt they say over here. 😁👍

Head over to a youtube channel for Hedblom, watch their excavator driver, skills!

Hi

You can call them rototilt

Gradall??

Wonder how much wear and tear goes on them over time? Those buckets without a bolt on cutting edge are not ideal for cutting/shaping. Nice concept but have no idea what they would cost to rebuild, some of those 84" chuck blades can cost north of 12K to rebuild so lol.

Call osha, that spoils pile is not 2 feet from the trench. Lol

NICE EASY TO RUN HYDRAULIC EQUIPMENT TRY RUNNING CABLE OPERATED EQUIPMENT FROM THE 40S.

If you want to see what can be done with Tiltrotator check out Duckgirl 86, Shes a surgeon with her machine!!!

Encon looks alot more compact these steelwrist looks a littlebit clumsy

We just called ROTOTILT in finland.

Slight loss in breakout force????? Lol

Engcon 4ever

Good for finishing grading not for heavy digging a thumb is more useful.

Excavator op my ass. Looks slow sloppy and maybe a weekend worrier once a year. Not his whole life.

That set up is going to hurt Grade-all sales.

Just go watch hedblom and he can show u how to run one and duckgirl

You can’t lift a much with all the weight on your stick

I think it is just (finally) allowing for attachments on the digger side of a tractor so they decided to add tilt while they were at it. I see no real _advantage_ to the tilt here.

Haha "hard-on" steel

haha im from sweden and i had no ide that it was uncommon. i that almost every excavetor had that. only the biggest machines dont have that. werd americans ;)

If you really want to see what these things can do, go check out a channel called "duckgirl 86"

I want to give a thumbs down for always having to adjust the volume! why does music have to be twice as loud as you guys talking? Some people have sleeping babies. Even if not it’s annoying to Constantly adjust. Please fix it. I didnt give thumbs down though cause I love you