This is a YouTube video titled "John Deere SmartGrade™ Motor Grader" featuring a multi-speaker discussion about the features and benefits of the SmartGrade motor grader technology. Various speakers share their experiences and insights on how the technology improves efficiency, precision, and ease of operation in construction and grading work. The content is technical and promotional in nature, focusing on advancements in motor grader machinery.
We're doing some shoulder improvements on a two lane highway.
The parking area on this job is about 70,000 square feet total.
This project is going to be a 12,000 acre reservoir.
On these jobs, time is money. An operator can get here in the morning and he doesn't have to mess with setting up mast and running wiring harnesses. It's already all integrated into the machine.
I can put one man in a GPS system on the job and it'll get graded. I don't need grade checkers. I don't need additional equipment. I don't need anything.
We used to use blue tops and laser levels and string lines. And it's a thing of the past. And with this technology, it enables us to be more precise, more efficient. With this machine, it just has so many sensors on it that's always correcting itself.
The machine is performing extremely well on slopes. Doesn't matter what position you put the moldboard in, it stays on grade. It's fast enough to keep up with manipulating those functions while the machine is moving.
The fine grade of the smart grade motor grader is fantastic. And it just makes the job go a lot faster. You have to make less passes.
A motor grader is probably the machine that I've been on that has the most buttons and levers of any machine that I run. You can make that machine do anything you want to with doing nothing more than moving your fingertips.
We have guys that are four or five year old hands that can jump on there and blade like a 20 year hand.
These operators have to sit in these machines anywhere from 10 to sometimes 14 hours a day. And the control setup that they have in this machine now, it's quite honestly effortless.
I think going mastless is going to be a big change in the industry. And the fact of less wires and more trouble free.
In the past I've run dual mast systems. They get the job done. But you're limited in your abilities.
On the traditional masted system, we always take the GPS mast off to haul the tractor. With the smartgrade, you don't have to do that.
As far as our downtime and repairs, it's less downtime with this machine because of not having the cable. A lot of times they'll break just because of the stress of bouncing up and down.
Auto articulation is nice. Just turn it on and you don't.
Have to worry about it.
When you get to the end of a pass, turn around.
When you are carrying a windrow. If the machine gets loaded up and your mowboard is full, it will archic the machine to take stress off of the machine to put the load in the direction that you need it to go.
Once you get used to it, you won't have it any other way. The blade flip is very handy. You don't have to try and steer and see where you're going and turn the blade at the same time. You flick it twice and the blade goes to turning and then you worry about the steering and getting where you're trying to go.
What makes you money is only touching dirt once. If you're not utilizing this smart grade system and the gps, you're not in the game.
It really opens up a lot of possibilities for a motor grader.
I would tell anybody that the smart grade motor grader is awesome.
John Deere Stepping up and coming out with the first smart grade motor grader lets me think that my John Deere people are on top of it.
