PaulB
Gold Member
I've had my tiltmeter for about 2 weeks now, and thought I would pass along some thoughts, as I believe this little piece of plastic may very well be the most important piece of equipment I have yet purchased for my tractor. I bought online from R&B manufacturing, the first time I ever bought ANYTHING online. (It is so easy it is scary, so I let my wife take the credit card!!) I bought the model 23c, because it is smaller than most of the others, and so fits on my dash better. I have a B1700, and the larger models, like the one Bird and Mark bought, would cover up most of my dash. The 23c just covers up my blinker idiot lights and partially obscures the other idiot lights, but not so much that I can't see them. I used the double sided sticky tape provided to mount the meter, as I couldn't find a good place to put the included bracket. The instrument itself has a real quality feel to it, kind of like a Snap-on tool compared to a taiwan one, and seems worth the price when compared to the $10 air bubble in a tube types I have seen at RV shops. I have found a few surprises since mounting the meter. For the most part, I found that my seat-of-the-pants feeling was pretty good - I found that , by comparing what I felt to what the meter tells me is the actulal slope, I start to feel like I am on a real slope at what the meter now tells me is around 12 degrees, get REALLY focused at 15, and give up on what I am attempting at around 18 degrees. That being said, there are some exceptions. I found that sudden changes in angle, like if one rear wheel rides up over a rock, fell a hell of a lot worse than the meter says they should, whereas gradual slopes feel less intimidating even though the angle may be greater. If I go suddenly from flat to 10 degrees I swear I'm going over, but if I gradually go across an increasing slope I feel confident up to 15 degrees or so. I have arbirarily set my personal limit at 15 degrees - If I can not do what I want to do without the meter staying under 15, I quit. It just isn't worth it to me to push the limits, then suddenly have one wheel sink into soft dirt and all of a sudden I go from 18 degrees to 25 (and then 90!) In this way I feel the meter will prove in the long run to be a great benefit to me, as I no longer have to guess. People who do this for a living might have to take chances, and proceed regardless of what the meter tells them, but I do this mostly for fun, so if the meter tells me to give up I can do so without any negative ramifications. I can NOT roll the tractor without severe negative ramifications however, and I think the tiltmeter will be most useful to me by acting as a policeman, letting me know when it just isn't worth it to keep trying to do whatever I am doing that has me at the far end of my comfort scale. I really think these should be standard equipment on all compact tractors, but until they are, by all means get one. Like I said I got mine from Randy at R$B, and am pleased with it. I can not for the life of me figure out why more small manufactureres, and maybe even big ones, don't spend more time and effort on this forum. I don't know how many tiltmeters R&B will sell because of their interaction on this board, but I know it is more than they would sell if they were NOT here, and also their presence here give we users easy access to information and products which are useful to many if not all of us.
