Excavator controls

Excavator controls specifies ways of how a human operator controls the digging components (i.e. swing, boom, stick, bucket) of a piece of heavy machinery, such as a backhoe or an excavator.

The most commonly used control pattern throughout the world is the ISO controls. In the ISO control pattern, the left hand joystick controls Swing (left & right) and the Boom (up-down), and the right hand joystick controls the Stick (in & out) and Bucket motions (close & dump).

Beside ISO, the SAE controls is one most common control patterns in the United States. It differs from the ISO control pattern only in that SAE controls exchange the hands that control the boom and the stick. The relevant SAE standard is J1814.

In the SAE control pattern, the left hand joystick controls Swing (left & right) and the Stick (in & out), and the right hand joystick controls the Boom (up-down) and Bucket motions (close & dump).

In the US, usually excavators comes with that kind of settings (SAE) from all manufacturers (Komatsu, Caterpillar, Kobelco, Hyundai, Doosan, Hitachi, Link Belt, Kubota). Some excavators have the possibility with the easy motion of a single switch, to change the operating mode from SAE to ISO and, from ISO to SAE (Wacker Neuson ).

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