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Originally Posted by pigeonfarmboy
To be fair though, Joe you haven't touched on any negatives for the Vario Excavator.
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Very true! I have had problems with the Vario excavator during & after assembly, BUT! Vario & Fumotec both were willing to work with work me to sort out the problems.. unlike wdc that blows me off by calling me a substandard builder who doesn't read instructions properly which is the result of the problems I was having..
..within a few hrs, my 1st problem with the 740 was snapping off the rod eye from dump cyl. The angle of the rod eye was different when cyl retracted/box down than fully extended/box up, flexing the rod eye on the end of piston rod back & forth till it broke off!
I suggested on a german forum that there should be a flexible eye (like what's used in some 4 link suspension systems of rock crawlers) installed to relieve that stress.. 6 months after wdc insulted me, they did just that, offered an upgrade kit with the swivel eye rod end, but even then, cheaped out with plastic instead of brass and the weight of the dump box destroyed them in no time flat anyway.
I cured my problem by oversizing the pin holes in the box so the pin could freely flex.
Vario, I think they used up their inventory of the "old track drive" system before coming out with the new one (that you now have) and that cheeses me a little bit! However, they did recognize the problem & came up with a solid solution! But there again, there is some builder's experienced knowledge that comes into play during assembly that is not noted in the instructions.. you must machine flat spots on all the steel shafts where set screws contact & blue lock tite all set screws so they do not come loose!
And then there is the swing drive issue that needs to be addressed as well, which I don't think Vario has come to terms with yet.. the positioning of the worm gear on the drive motor to the special brass gear on the vertical drive pinion needs to be precisely centered with shims for proper working order.
I didn't know this during assembly and ruined my gears. All the problems I had I discussed with the designer of the hoe, Frank and he gave me a free of charge solution to try (he told me not tell anybody, oops cat's out of the bag now
)... the vertical motor -direct drive works perfect! It's dumby proof to install!
I haven't sent your's or other's new vertical swing drive out yet, but the weather looks bad for Monday, so I may get them in the mail then.
I operated Jammer's Vario hoe at cabin fever and his swing drive worked pretty good, could have done with a bit more tuning, but was working good at an extreme angle with just a bit of pulsating. So it is possible to get that worm drive to work properly (His model was built by Vario as well)
The vertical direct drive has way more swing power.. could be hard on the crown gear though, so use the power wisely.
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I suppose noone has mentioned the RC4WD excavator option in this thread. Depending on your available funds to get into this crap, it may be your only option you can currently afford.
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The RC4WD is RTR only, the author requested kit form to assemble for himself..
I think the RC4WD hoe should be left to experienced modelers as it's plagued with problems with both electronic & hydraulic that a newbie would be lost to figure out.. a couple of yrs of production and maybe those short comings will be resolved.
