X63 gives precise control for deep cuts

‘If we wouldn’t have had this system, we would have had to have a grade checker out here the whole time, pulling stakes and checking the slope continually. I would say it would have taken us a half a day to a day longer.' – Troy Gjerde, Project Manager, Haydon Building Corp.

The bridge on Higley Road, a major north-south arterial east of Phoenix, crosses a wash in the Eastern Maricopa Floodway. A lane was to be added in each direction, necessitating the construction of five piers to support each new traffic lane.

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Just as importantly, use of the technology also eliminated the need for topographical verification via conventional surveying methods, and for a worker to physically enter the excavation for verification, which would have necessitated time-consuming shoring procedures and created a less safe work situation.

Haydon also subscribes to a network that provides positioning corrections using cellular technology. Branco Machinery of Gilbert, which also sold and services Haydon’s Topcon Positioning Systems GNSS equipment, set up the TAZNet (Topcon Arizona Network) in mid-2007, giving contractors the ability to start grading and excavating immediately, without the need to deploy a separate base station on each jobsite. The base station can instead be converted to a rover for survey work on another project.

Haydon’s Caterpillar excavator was recently equipped with Topcon’s X63 grade-control system, which is specifically designed for excavators. The system consists of four temperature-compensated 360-degree CAN-based tilt sensors that measure

 
angles from the cab, boom, stick and bucket. As the pier footings were excavated, the operator viewed on the GX-60 in-cab monitor the machine’s exact position on the site, in addition to the bucket’s constant position. By viewing the 3-D digital site model on the monitor, the operator avoided over-excavation and minimized material waste.

Project Manager Troy Gjerde recalled the speed at which the 1,000-cubic-yard footing excavations were dug and graded over the previous three weeks and added that the system provided positioning accuracy within one-tenth of a foot. “If we wouldn’t have had this system, I would say it would have taken us a half a day to a day longer,” he said.

Fortunately, the operators’ learning curve was not steep in terms of learning to use the X63 system, said Gjerde. “Believe it or not, the guy who’s the least experienced on the excavator did the best job with the system,” Gjerde said. “I don’t even think it was a matter of hours for them to learn it.”

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