Took me 5 years to realize I was rigging my boom angle all wrong

Was setting up a 50 ton lattice boom crawler last Tuesday for a steel beam job in Cleveland. Old timer walks by, looks at my setup, just laughs. Says I been using the wrong boom angle chart for this configuration. Had been using the general chart instead of the specific one for my jib offset. Been doing it that way since I got my cert. Felt like an idiot. Anyone else have that moment where a simple fix changed everything?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_piper12d ago

Came across something similar with my crane last year. Turned out the load cell was calibrated for imperial tons but the boom angle sensor was reading in metric degrees. Spent two months wondering why my capacity always felt off until a buddy ran the numbers while I was on coffee break. The funny thing is the manual actually has a note about it on page 43 but nobody reads past page 10. Once I matched the sensor to the chart everything lined up perfect. Now I tell every new guy to check their unit settings on any machine they haven't run before. Its those little details that make you look like you know what you're doing or a total newbie.

robinl9012d ago

Man, that is such a classic crane trap! I had almost the exact same headache with a Terex a few years back. The load chart was in pounds but the LMI was set to kilograms, and I spent a whole week scratching my head on a pick that should have been easy. Nobody ever thinks to double check the unit settings because you assume it's correct from the factory, right? The manual thing is spot on too, I swear they hide the most important notes in there just to mess with us. Ever catch a new guy making that mistake on your site?