Twin Drives Move the Winch System of the Excavator

Two powerful planetary drives with 85,000 Nm capacity, from Bonfiglioli, are used in the Falcon Winch Assist for excavators from the New Zealand manufacturing company DC Equipment. The twin drives 715C in each Falcon Winch Assist unit are incorporated into an open loop, single-drum hydraulic system featuring brake safety.

by Alma Castiglioni

The Falcon Winch Assist is a winch system for excavators from the New Zealand engineering and manufacturing company DC Equipment and is achieving international success because of its outstanding safety, reliability and efficiency. Due to its many advantageous characteristics it is predestinated for tethered earthmoving machines to haul felled trees on slopes up to 45 degrees.
The hydraulic winch uses a pair of high-performance Bonfiglioli 715C crawler drives, which can be fitted to a broad range of excavators over 30 tons. The hydraulic winch assist machine is housed in the rear of the crawler vehicle where Bonfiglioli compact but torque-dense, 85,000 Nm capacity 715C crawler drive is the perfect fit for challenging tasks.
In addition to being used in tethered applications for felled trees, it can be used for digging, loading and shoveling in demanding situations, with high levels of safety achieved by features and operating alerts built in to ensure the security of operators and enable them to concentrate on the task in hand.

The single-drum hydraulic system ensures safe operating conditions
The twin drives 715C in each Falcon Winch Assist unit are incorporated into an open loop, single-drum hydraulic system featuring brake safety. The Falcon Winch Assist has a primary hydraulic braking system for maximum control to achieve consistent rope tension minimize tension spikes. An emergency backup braking system utilizes two Bonfiglioli integrated planetary gear box brakes for a double redundancy backup braking system. The hydraulic and electrical safety system of the Falcon Winch Assist were designed to ensure the system remains in a safe operating stat and to prevent shock loading, thanks to a system communication monitoring, drum speed control and alerts that warn of machine failures and activate automatic emergency braking.
Reliability of the multipurpose Falcon Winch Assist is advanced by the use of twin Bonfiglioli 715C planetary gearboxes proven globally in tough industrial applications, including mobile cranes and milling machines employed in industries including agriculture, construction equipment, mining and energy, forestry, food processing, primary production, land and water transportation, power generation and transmission and renewable energy. Bonfiglioli drives are designed to withstand the widely varying operating conditions you may have in New Zealand region, including temperature fluctuations and particularly demanding applications, where reliability is paramount.
The high reliability combined with the global reputation of these gearmotors has been instrumental in their choice by DC Equipment for this application.

Local presence and prompt
delivery: the other important factors in the choice
The strong local presence and prompt delivery were the other important factors in the choice of Bonfiglioli drives. The company is expanding its organization in New Zealand with a focus on engineering and service to offer increasingly customized solutions tailored to the needs of individual customers.
The new CAE team, Customer Application Engineering, of Bonfiglioli operating in Australia and New Zealand, supported by a strong global R&D and a big group of professionals, 21 branches and 14 production plants.