GROVE telescoping under load

GROVE telescoping under load


With the CRANEbee Version 6.1.2 we have introduced the new crane control tab "Free telescoping. For this we have worked together with GROVE who provided us with the necessary crane data and know-how.
With this feature CRANEbee can plan telescoping under load with the given limitations of the crane. At first you will have to open the telescoping tab.



And then choose which Telescoping action you want to choose. At the start Fixed Length is preselected.

Modes:
Fixed Length:
While in the fixed length mode you can choose a fixed length via the normal crane controls. This also utilizes the normal lift tables. This will lock all other controls in the free telescoping tab.

Retract:
Utilizes retract tables. Those are usually limited by wedging of the inner box while too much weight is on the hook. As we are a planning tool you usually can still choose a length shorter than the starting length to work with.

Hold:
Utilizes hold tables. Those are usually limited by how much weight the hydraulic cylinder inside the boom can hold the boom at a certain length. As we are a planning tool you usually can still choose a length shorter or longer than the starting length to work with.

Extend:
Utilizes extend tables. Those are usually limited by how much weight the hydraulic cylinder inside the boom can still push outward. As we are a planning tool you usually can still choose a length longer than the starting length to work with.

Interface:
In this part the interface is explained. After you opened the free telescoping tab and have chosen a mode, in this case "extend", you can see some changes to the interface (please see the image below):
  1. You can no longer choose a fixed length in the upper control.  However the range of the currently selected inner box of the main boom is shown as well as the currently selected length.
  2. This shows in which mode you currently are in. More information on the modes above.
  3. This area shows each inner box for this crane with their current boom-sequence as well as the currently selected section (green) and other possible choices (light gray). 
  4. Here you will see a slider with some information. On the left side you see it at its lowest sequence (0%) all the way to the right (100%). In this particular case the sequence is only possible to extend to 49% thus having the slider stick to this tick in the middle. If there were more than one possible fixed length for this current sequence it would be shown by more ticks.
  5. Grab and slide the slider to either side to change the overall length of the main boom. You can see this live on the right side (6) and once you release the slider this may update the viewport, the length in the crane controls above, the ground bearing pressure, and the hook height. This will also affect your possible maximum load and radius. If you jump over one of the ticks this will also load a new load chart
  6. For more accuracy you can use the Up/Down arrows or directly type in a value.
  7. In the printout the chosen mode is also displayed for every step.

How to use it:

While in one of the telescoping modes going from the smallest (right) to the biggest (left) inner box you can, to a certain degree, freely change their indivual length. For this feature we are still bound to the new tables so most of the time, we need to perform a "minimum value formation" to get the correct values and tables for this particular case. This applies to all 3 modes. In some cases you are not able to fully bring the slider to 100%, simply because this chart does not exist. The slider will be stopped on the biggest available value.
During the usage you will see certain ticks beneath the slider. These ticks are the next/previous fixed length. You can only change inner boxes while on a tick.
When changing from a fixed length to another mode we automatically choose the currently smallest changable inner box. This is limited by the length of the hydraulic cylinder inside the boom, so we can never change an inner box that is out of reach. 

When changing from one of the modes back to "fixed length", CRANEbee will automatically select the nearest fixed length for the chosen value. You can also again choose a boom length via the dropdown menu.