Re: EF-5 Brush Brute\'ing & Ear Protection
I got the Pro-Ears noise suppression headset and had a chance to try them out for several hours yesterday. It was a pretty good test, because I was doing some very heavy work with the Brush Brute. More on that later.
The Pro-Ears worked great! You can hear as much or as little of the ambient noise as you want by adjusting the amplification of the headset via a jumper inside the ear cup. This isn't as simple as it could be, and you need a small set of needle nose pliers to do it, but at least you can adjust it. Also, both ear cups are totally self-contained, so you have to do it twice, unless you want one hear to hear different things from the other - or have hearing loss in one ear, and
need to set one ear different from the other.
Using these things is a really unique experience. At first, you get the feeling they aren't working, because you still hear everything. And I mean
everything, even some stuff you couldn't hear without them, if you have the amplification feature turned on. This causes some strange sensations, but you get used to them quickly. For example, I was running over quite a bit of brush, and I could hear the bushes scrape along the bottom of the machine so well that I thought they were rubbing harder than they were. Several times, I got off the machine to check for damage because I could hear brush scraping sounds that I couldn't hear before, because they were drowned out by the engine and hydraulic system noises. You get used to that quickly, though, and I really like the idea of hearing everything so well - it could save some major damage to equipment if you have a habit of listening for strange sounds, like I do.
There are independent volume controls on the outside of each earcup - the typical knobs you're used to seeing on regular headphones - which also function as on/off switches. Again, you can adjust each ear independently. It's very important to understand that these controls are completely different from the amplification jumpers I mentioned earlier. The amplification jumpers control whether and how much very low volume sounds are boosted in volume, while the volume controls determine how loud everything sounds to you. If you turn the volume control off, that ear cup functions as a simple 26db noise-reduction muff. If you turn it on, sounds are played back to your ear at whatever volume you want. Obviously, this is in addition to whatever sound makes it through the 26db reduction of the padding.
There is no control over the noise damping function, nor do I think there should be. Anything over 72db gets damped, louder sounds more than softer ones. Obviously, anything that loud is going to make it through the padding, too, so you'd be able to hear it even if the internal system didn't transmit it at all, but it does anyway. I used them a few minutes with my Stihl 038 chain saw and they worked at least as well as the Stihl ear muffs I've got.
All of the above adds up to this: I'm
very pleased with them. I don't like headsets, and I like ear plugs a lot less. But I particularly dislike losing my hearing. The headsets didn't give me the "stuffy" feeling that ear plugs do, and I was able to hear normal conversation easily, even while the tractor was loud. At first, I didn't think I was going to like them at all, but I quickly decided that they're standard equipment for me when using the machine. For me, the safety aspects of being able to hear what's going, or hearing somebody shouting, are more important than the safety aspects of losing my hearing, so I've been very reluctant to wear hearing protection while using equipment. Not any more. These are the perfect solution to the problem, in my opinion. (Now, if I could just get paid for selling 'em. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif)
Back to the EF-5. I cleared half an acre or so of brush, holly & pine trees up to 3" or so in diameter, etc. in about an hour and a half, including piling it to be burned. The Brush Brute continues to impress me as an excellent tool. I also used it for pushing over a couple of larger trees, the largest a holly about 8" in diameter. The ends of the "tines" dug into the tree trunk enough that I was able to get some lifting force out of the loader as well, which really helped in pushing it over. After pushing it over, I had a 5' diameter root ball standing on edge, so I cut it off with the chain saw, flipped it upside down, and pushed it back into the hole it came out of, so the rain can wash the dirt back into the hole.
I managed to get the EF-5 stuck again in the mucky soil down by the river where I was clearing, and had to drag myself out with the backhoe, as I did once before. I tried getting myself out with the loader first, but I was mired up too deeply. I think the Michelin XM27's would've prevented me from getting stuck in the first place, though, so they may move up the list in priority. As I keep saying, everything is a compromise. This machine is so heavy for its tire footprint, compared to the
L4310, that it's easier to get stuck in soft ground, but it'll do so much more work that I'm happy to make that trade - especially with a backhoe on the back to get un-stuck with... /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif
As incredible as the amount of work the EF-500 will do is, I'd sure like to try some of the smaller ones some time, just to see how they compare to the
L4310. It's not really possible to compare my EF-500 to my old
L4310, because the difference in capability is so great. In pitting one against the other, I'd estimate that I can do 2-4 times the amount of work at a time in any given task with the EarthForce machine. That's not saying the
L4310 was a slouch - it wasn't, and most everyone here has some idea of what that machine can do - but it gives you some idea of what the possibilities are with a machine in the class of the EF-500. Plus, remember that my
L4310 wasn't exactly stock... All of which is to say that I have a feeling that an EF-100, or EF-200 at most, would do more than work, in the areas I use a machine most, than my
L4310 would've. This machine still amazes me almost every time I use it. So much so that I may rent an EF-300 from Folcomer soon just to compare it with the EF-500 and the
L4310.
