Specialising in goods transport – Mauroux Transport is co-directed by Joel and his son Laurent Mauroux. Sugar beet pickup represents a significant 20% share of the company’s turnover. To perform this arduous task in an efficient and timely manner Laurent and Joel Mauroux went looking for a robust and powerful wheeled excavator which could host a number of modifications for the task in hand! “The clamshell style grab shovel for beet collection requires numerous adjustments and is specific for this operation, “says Lionel Registrar from Hyundai dealer Sermat TP. Joel Mauroux added, “We were looking for a more efficient wheeled excavator – and Hyundai R210W-9A fitted the bill!”The R210W-9A: A robust and powerful machine!
Delivered in time for the sugar beet collection campaign, the Hyundai R210W-9A went into operation straight away. Didier Fourquenay, a Mauroux Transport driver for 13- years said, “It took me a couple of days to get used to this new excavator as the machine is much more responsive and more flexible than the machine I was using before. It’s much more comfortable, the cabin is spacious and offers good visibility, which is particularly important in this operation as I am operating from five o’clock in the morning to three o’clock in the afternoon and sometimes from 10 o’clock in the morning to eight o’clock in the evening. This is the perfect machine – just what we needed.”
The task for the machine and its operator is to pick up and collect sugar beet from several plots near roads – the beet silos have been filled by farmers after harvesting their fields. The R210W-9A’s job is then to load the trucks that head off to la sucrerie Lesaffre de Nangis and unload their cargo. The grab ‘basket’ on the R210W-9A is loaded with 3000 litres of beet and it takes 17 slew cycles to load the awaiting trucks with 30 tons. “The fact that this machine is equipped with a very large basket enables us to optimize loading and improve efficiency.” says Joel Mauroux. “We have gained about one minute per load- for example it now takes four minutes instead of just over five minutes, compared to the old machine.
This means that we use two less ‘baskets’ per truck during the beet harvesting campaign. These minutes gained are very important to us as we gain an extra hour a day compared to the old machine to do exactly the same weight with the same number of trucks.” Joel added, “A fleet of three excavators – including two Hyundai’s, 15 tractors, 30 trailers, a telescopic handler will load about 130,000 tonnes of sugar beet in the three-month campaign.”
The Hyundai R210W -9A wheeled excavator, has an operating weight of 20500 kg (21tonne) and is equipped with a Cummins QSB 6.7 engine which has an output of 175 hp or 129 kW to 2000 r / min.
The machine is equipped with the Hyundai Hi -mate system – a remote management system developed by Hyundai using GPS-satellite technology. Hi -mate enables owners to benefit from the performance monitoring of the machine, check its location and remotely access diagnostic information through a simple Internet connection.
This machine has had many modifications in order to complete its task- these were completed in Hyundai dealer SERMAT TP’s workshop. The sale of the R210W-9A was finalized at Intermat. Lionel Registrar said, “The modifications include the installation of four stabilizers which are needed for the beet collection – a blade is never used. Also additional lights were installed for good visibility and the bucket cylinder was removed to make the machine lighter. A ‘Beet Basket’ rotator was also installed at the end of the machine’s boom and it has super single wheels.”
Lionel added, “A computer is also installed inside the cabin which is linked to the gathering of Sugar Beet and monitors the collection. These modifications took just two weeks to transform the R210W -9A wheeled excavator to suit the customers’ requirements.”
