JLG Industries’ DaVinci AE1932 all-electric scissor lift took the top prize in RER’s 2020 Innovative Product Awards, voted the Gold Award by a panel of rental industry judges. Coming in second with the Silver Award was The Toro Co. for its e-Dingo 500, a lithium-Ion battery-powered update of its long-popular Dingo compact utility loader. And the Bronze Award went to Thermal Intelligence, an Alberta, Canada-based company whose Basecamp product is a three-in-one industrial flameless heater, light tower and generator with an integrated IOT solution. In winning the Bronze Award, the Basecamp product narrowly edged out JLG’s SkyTrak 3013, an ultra-compact telehandler, a highly maneuverable unit with rear pivot steer, which won the Material Handling Award.
The DaVinci AE 1932, which won decisively with half of the judges voting for it to win the Gold, is an all-electric unit and the first lift in a new category from JLG named for the inventor and innovator Leonardo DaVinci. While electric-drive scissors have been part of the lift-and-access industry for decades, the machine’s advanced technology eliminates leaks by eliminating the need for fluids. The machine travels twice as fast as a standard scissor lift and charges 3.5-times faster. The DaVinci AE1932 is also the first scissor lift in the industry that offers the ability to recover energy while the platform is being lowered. This innovation allows for a 70-percent decrease in power consumption with longer life on a charge when compared to a standard scissor lift. The leak-free machine has minimal environmental impact with zero emissions and fewer serviceable parts to further reduce service requirements.
The DaVinci AE1932 is a smart machine that conducts self-diagnostics and allows operators to test all systems on the machine from their mobile device, which eliminates the traditional hand-held analyzer. Proactively tracking machine health can help to further reduce maintenance issues and improve total cost of ownership of the equipment. Other features of the DaVinci AE1932 include QuikFold rails, which are useful when working or moving the lift in and through tight spaces. Also, JLG Mobile Control allows users to move and load the scissor up to 40 feet away from the lift.
The DaVinci also took first place in the “Lifts” category.
The Toro e-Dingo, which also won the “Earthmoving” category, scored a strong second for the Silver Award. Toro has made a major step into the electric-powered equipment marketplace by introducing the Toro e-Dingo 500 compact utility loader. The e-Dingo allows contractors and construction professionals to realize the benefits and power of a standard compact utility loader with no fuel costs and zero exhaust emissions. Designed for indoor construction but strong enough for the outdoors, the new e-Dingo is currently available through Toro’s extensive network of trusted dealers and rental partners.
Efficiency and reliable performance set the e-Dingo apart for faster completion times and greater ROI for rental partners. It’s powered by Lithium-Ion battery technology designed for tasks that require heavy or continuous operation for indoor applications. The maximum operating capacity of 515 pounds reduces labor and hauling time.
Maneuverability is also a hallmark of the new e-Dingo thanks to Toro’s 4-Paw independent 4-wheel drive system and spin-turn performance. Also, rental stores can offer a machine with an impressive level of versatility thanks to a suite of attachments. The e-Dingo allows operators to utilize several power modes to conserve energy. The Auto Idle feature automatically conserves energy by powering off the motor after it’s been idle for a certain period.
Thermal Intelligence’s Basecamp, winner of the Light Tower category as well as the Bronze, provides a 360° LED lighting package and 27 kW of available power generation. A 2,500-hour service interval comes standard. SmartTalk Telematics Solution offers 24/7 remote monitoring and control.
Other category winners were:
· Compressors & Air Tools: Sullair’s Next Generation 1600H Tier 4 Final Portable Air Compressor
· Computer Software: Point of Rental’s Contactless Rental
· Engines/Power Sourcing: Perkins Engines’ EcoPlus oil filter
· Generators/Welders: Powr2’s POWRBANK Solar Trailer
· Material Handling: JLG’s SkyTrak 3013
· Miscellaneous: Innovative Access Solutions’ Mobile Work Platform for Traffic Control
· Technology Enhancements: JLG’s Augmented Reality App
By winning in the Lifts, Material Handling and Technology Enhancements categories, JLG becomes the first company to win three categories in the same year.
RER will have much more detail about these and all the entrees in upcoming issues of RER Reports and RER magazine.
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Art and Engineering from DaVinci
Gold Award
DaVinci AE1932 All-Electric Scissor Lift
JLG Industries
Original Category: Lifts
Key Innovation:
The DaVinci AE1932 all-electric scissor lift is the first lift in a new category from JLG named for the legendary artist, inventor and innovator, Leonardo DaVinci. While electric-drive scissors have been part of the lift-and-access industry for decades, the DaVinci AE1932 delivers next-level performance and sustainability with advanced technology that completely eliminates leaks.
Manufacturer’s Description:
With a 19-foot platform height, the 32-inch wide DaVinci AE1932 scissor lift provides a class-leading platform capacity of 600 pounds -- both indoors and outdoors. This is a 20-percent improvement from typical scissors. The machine travels twice as fast as a standard scissor lift and charges 3.5 times faster for unrivaled uptime and flexibility. Its single lithium-ion battery lasts up to 120-months/10-years, so owners should never have to replace the battery during the machine’s expected lifecycle. The DaVinci AE1932 is also the first scissor lift in the industry that offers the ability to recover energy while the platform is being lowered. This innovation allows for a 70-percent decrease in power consumption with longer life on a charge when compared to a standard scissor.
The clean, quiet operation of the DaVinci AE1932 makes it the right machine for a variety of indoor applications, including data centers, hotels, casinos, museums, big box stores and other urban spaces. In addition to addressing customer demand, the DaVinci AE1932 also helps to satisfy an increasingly stringent regulatory environment. The leak-free machine has minimal environmental impact with zero emissions and fewer serviceable parts to further reduce service requirements. The DaVinci AE1932 is a smart machine that conducts self-diagnostics and allows operators to test all systems on the machine from their mobile device, which eliminates the traditional hand-held analyzer. Proactively tracking machine health can help to further reduce maintenance issues and improve total cost of ownership of the equipment. Other features of the DaVinci AE1932 include QuikFold rails, which are useful when working or moving the lift in and through tight spaces. In addition, JLG Mobile Control allows users to move and load the unit from up to 40 feet away from the lift.
RER Commentary: Rafael Nuñez, senior product manager – scissor lifts and vertical lifts, explains how the DaVinci AE1932 recovers energy while the platform is being lowered: “When you descend, the same motor that is used to lift the actuator becomes the generator, and the generator makes sure that the platform descends at a certain speed. While it’s slowing the platform down, it is capturing the energy that’s being created because that same motor is becoming a generator recovering energy back to the battery. It’s new in the industry, nobody else is doing that. Most manufacturers in the industry call it ‘lift down,’ which means you’re actually pushing that lift on the way down which means that it’s not being controlled by gravity, it’s using its energy to push the platform down, so it’s a double whammy.”
Nuñez also talks about how the unit is able to travel at roughly twice the speed of previous scissor lifts.
“One of the things we wanted to do was incorporate lithium-ion technology for the battery, but the price of lithium-ion technology is still relatively high. So, we wanted to make the machine super-efficient to use with the least amount of energy possible, so we re-designed every single part of the driveline. We redesigned the drive system; we went from DC drive to AC drive. It’s more efficient and it’s also maintenance-free. The AC drive system allows us to go four miles per hour on our machine. Most machines in the industry go about two mph, maybe 2.2, maybe 2.5, so we’re going double the drive speed.”
The unit also charges 3.5 times as fast as other electric scissor lifts. Nuñez explains: “Our battery is a 72-amp hour battery, which is about a third the size for a traditional lift of this type. Most lifts of this type have a battery size of about 220 or 225 amp hours so because we have a smaller battery we can charge it 3.5 times faster. And with lithium-ion technology, actually, we have two different types of chargers. We have a standard charger which charges a whole battery in three-and-a-half hours and the we have a high-capacity charger that will actually charge it in two-and-a-half hours.”
Not only does the unit motor along fast for a scissor lift, but its progressive elevated drive speed enables faster movement while elevated. “On a standard lift, you go up, you start elevating and when you get maybe two feet off the ground, you get restricted to what they call elevated drive speed, which is about 0.5 miles per hour. If you’re one foot off the ground or 19 feet off the ground, you’re always going to go 0.5 miles per hour. On the DaVinci product it progressively reduces your drive speed based on your height. You may be 10 feet off the ground, and you may be able to go 1.5 miles per hour, so three times faster. You may be 15 feet off the ground, and you go 1 mile per hour. It doesn’t sound like a whole lot between .5 and 1 mile per hour, but it is double the drive speed.
“It’s significant because our lifts are not always used at full height. So, you see them at 12 feet trying to get something done across the building and what you’ll see [operators] do is come down to full drive speed or transport speed and then go back up. This progressive elevated drive speed feature is really going to be a game changer as well.”
Getting the machine to an almost complete lack of maintenance was a goal of the DaVinci’s designers.
“We don’t have hydraulic cylinders, we don’t have hydraulic valves,” says Nunez. “Because it’s electric drive, electric steer and lift, there’s no place for oil. Even the single battery doesn’t require water, so with no fluid, there’s no need for diapers.”
Nuñez says the zero-emissions, zero-maintenance lift has resonated with the company’s customers. Many of JLG’s customers are working on job sites where there is an expectation on the part of the customer to lower the jobsite’s carbon footprint.
“They are interested in lowering emissions, lowering total energy consumption, so we’re looking at the footprint of the jobsites and this machine helps that,” Nuñez says. “It’s a very interesting proposition and when you see good companies like Amazon and Microsoft and they’re wanting to build facilities that are carbon neutral, we are off the cutting edge of that.”
Another important development for the DaVinci was customers having complete diagnostic capability on their phones.
“One of the things we realize is that on the jobsite everybody has a phone,” adds Nunez. “Driving up to a jobsite, walking or driving through it, everybody gets directions from their phones. So, we wanted the tool that everybody has in their pocket. We’re launching an app, the DaVinci Go app and as part of that, you can communicate completely with every critical part of the machine with your phone.”
JLG spent a lot of time on the DaVinci and tested it with key partners in the industry for quite a bit of time. “It’s been a long process that gave us very good confidence that when we went into production and started shipping these to our customers just a few months ago, that we had a winning product,” says Nuñez.
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e-Dingo: The Silver Slugger
Silver Award
e-Dingo 500
The Toro Company
Original Category: Earthmoving
Key Innovation: The Lithium-Ion battery-powered Toro e-Dingo 500 allows end-users to realize all the benefits and power of a standard compact utility loader with no fuel costs and zero exhaust emissions. The e-Dingo is designed for indoor construction jobs that require fast completion times and reduced overall costs, but strong enough for outdoor work as well.
The Silver Award for 2020 goes to Toro Co.’s e-Dingo 500. Toro’s Dingo products have been popular items on outdoor jobsites all over the United States and in fact all over the world as small, extremely maneuverable compact utility loaders that can do excavating, material handling, breaking, hauling, digging and placing material, and more. It is essentially a compact utility loader, mini-excavator and compact track loader rolled into one piece of equipment, really a category of its own.
In recent years, Toro customers have expressed interest in having essentially the same machine to use indoors. The machine, of course, would need to be electric, battery-powered, a quiet, zero-exhaust, electric-drive machine with the same capabilities of the original Toro Dingo.
Toro’s rental market manager Jay Thaker explains the thought process that went into the development of the e-Dingo 500.
“The need was there, it was growing and will continue to grow for products that meet zero exhaust emissions, quiet equipment, reducing pollutants and any kind of by-products that can have chronic potential impact on people,” says Thaker. “For us, it was also important to identify productivity needs of the folks in indoor construction and demolition and then hone in on specific opportunities for contractors so that rental stores have the right products that meet these needs.”
Toro staff knew that its customers needed efficiency and were always looking for fast completion times on jobs. It also was aware that rental customers were always wanting to improve their return on investment. “One of the most important things for us is that customers come back to us and say, ‘This machine really helps me. This really helps us generate ROI.’ Especially because 2020 wasn’t an easy year for anybody,” Thaker says.
The company was confident that the lithium-ion battery technology would work for tasks that require tough or continuous operation for indoor applications. With a maximum operating capacity of 515 pounds, the unit is designed to improve productivity and save time. While run times of course vary depending on the application’s power draw and what attachments are being used, the e-Dingo 500 is designed with a bunch of energy saving features without compromising ROC, Thaker says.
“One of the things we wanted to make sure that we can offer is the ability to complete jobs as quickly as possible, and give [users] the power they need,” says Thaker. “A common feedback from end users in this space was, ‘We want the power, and we want safety because all of our employees work incredibly tough jobs.’ And we wanted to make sure we’re providing them with equipment that allows them to be as productive as possible, and thus not compromise on power.”
Maneuverability is also a hallmark of the new e-Dingo thanks to Toro’s 4-Paw independent 4-wheel drive system and true spin-turn performance.
“One of the advantages of the e-Dingo is the 4-Paw independent drive system is that it allows a true spin-turn,” says Thaker. “If you think about the applications that these sorts of machines get used in, there could be an economy of space. So being able to have that maneuverability in those types of applications is a distinct advantage of the e-Dingo. Couple that with the power and the speed and you have a very nice machine that helps improve production rates.”
Rental stores can offer a machine with an impressive level of versatility thanks to a suite of attachments including:
• Standard Bucket
• Narrow Bucket
• Light Materials Bucket
• Adjustable Forks
• Multi-Purpose Tool
• Hydraulic Breaker
• Grapple
• Leveler
• Utility Blade
• Auger
“The unit itself comes equipped with the quick-attach system that we utilize with all our Dingos,” Thaker says. “It makes changing attachments really easy, all you essentially do is turn two levers. You can install or swap out an attachment really quickly. We prefer customers use Toro-authorized attachments. We make sure that our attachments are designed, tested and validated as robustly as possible and designed to be used for the applications they are intended for.
“Because we’re using the same quick-attach system just like the rest of the Dingo family it can utilize pretty much most attachments except for some ground-engaging attachments. But we’re also coming out with attachments that are specific for the indoor construction space. So, we’re spending a lot of time listening to the indoor contractors and identifying specific needs so that the e-Dingo is a versatile tool much like the Dingos are for other types of applications.”
The e-Dingo also has an Auto Idle feature that shuts the unit off if idling for too long a period.
Toro has been pleased with the positive feedback it has received during the e-Dingo’s first year in the marketplace. “That goes all the way across the chain, from rental stores to compact equipment dealers, all the way down to the end user,” says Thaker. “It allows us the opportunity to have deeper conversations in regard to the needs at the end-user level, and the needs from the rental store.”
By identifying more unique applications, Toro will be able to develop more products in the indoor as well as outdoor construction marketplaces going forward.
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Three Machines in One
Bronze Award
Basecamp
Thermal Intelligence
Original Category: Light Towers
Key Innovation: Three-In-One Industrial Flameless Heater, Light Tower & Generator with an integrated IOT solution.
Unlike JLG and Toro, which have won multiple Innovative Product Awards in the past, Thermal Intelligence places among the top winners and category winners for the first time. Not only is Thermal Intelligence new to the IPAs, but the company has only been in existence for four years and is relatively new to the world of equipment rentals. But Thermal Intelligence, which essentially started off as a heating company before coming up with the Basecamp, has come up with a brilliant product. In fact, the day RER spoke with Mark Malekoff, director and co-founder of the company, the temperature was a mere -40 degrees in Grand Prairie, Alberta, Canada, so the company staff knows something about the need for reliable heat on jobsites.
It was the lack of reliable heat that led the founders and staff of Thermal Intelligence to create a new heater, and one with more functionality.
Co-founders Brian Tiedemann and Mark Malekoff and the rest of the core group had more than 25 years of heating experience in places like Fort MacMurray, Alberta, the North Slope in Alaska, all over Canada and the northern United States. “We have dealt, first-hand with the pain and suffering that goes with traditional heating equipment,” says Malekoff. “When temporary heat goes down it means something is freezing up, which typically means there are going to be consequences to deal with. We started realizing that if there can be cars that drive themselves, there has to be a better way to do this.”
They started considering that whenever heat is required on a jobsite, there almost always needed to be other equipment along with it, so they started to develop the “three-in-one” – the flameless heater, light tower and generator.
“We get a great deal of efficiency by combining those products into one,” says Malekoff. “But when we layer on our Smart Talk technology, which is our IOT solution, for example, even more so. When a traditional heater goes down, the only way they know is if they actually go look to see if it’s running or not and then the question is ‘Well how long does it take before someone knows and then how long was the heater down before someone knew and everything else. Our piece of equipment will send a text or email notification not only if it goes down but if there are any issues prior to it going down. We’ll have situations where something is going on with the unit and will actually notify the users onsite prior to there being any issues, so they don’t even get to be as far as their operation. So, we tried to look at it like the easy button for temporary heat and heat, power and light all together.”
Still, it took a while to develop the unit. “We had a couple of different generations of heaters that we worked through, but this is the first that had the combination of heat, power and light,” says Malekoff. “Just realizing that here’s an opportunity. And also that a typical light tower is a generator. And that typical light towers and generators are only a third efficient. So if a generator is a 30 kW generator, you’re actually going through 90 kilowatts of fuel to deliver that 30 kilowatts so we thought, ‘Well, let’s capture that, in essence, 60 kilowatts and capture that as part of our heat flow and air flow and then all of a sudden we’re tremendously more efficient in that manner. And so, we have a very efficient heating platform but also with the functionality of power and light and plus with our Smart Talk.”
The designers made sure the lights were powerful LED lights and made sure the telematics really offered predictive analytics. “It will let you know before there’s an issue,” says Malekoff. “It even has a functionality where can put a remote probe inside of the space for your heating that lets you know if you’re not able to achieve your temperatures. It goes way beyond just, ‘here’s where your heater is.’ It will send you a text notification that you’ve got 20 percent fuel left, that you need to go and fuel it as opposed to just waiting till you’re out of fuel. Plus, any other potential service that may come up, even on fuel or air filters too. If you’re in an unusually dusty environment or you get a bad batch of fuel, it will send you a notification that it’s noticing a pressure increase on the air filter or on the fuel line. So you can do a quick air filter cleaner change or a quick fuel filter change and have no disruption in operation.
“A traditional piece of equipment will break down and then people are scrambling to find a tech. Any time there’s an issue on the Basecamp, we’re the first ones to know and we can notify the customer.”
The unit is powered by a 45-horsepower Kubota engine. “It’s a reliable Kubota engine, cold-weather starting, so starting hasn’t been an issue for us,” Malekoff notes. “There are some other heaters on the market that utilize a hydraulic fluid for generating some heat and those ones are pretty notorious for having issues in cold-weather starting. But our unit because it’s just like starting a generator, there’s no load on the unit until you actually apply a load on the generator. So it actually does start quite well in cold weather.”
Minus-40 in Alberta? Just getting started!
Manufacturer’s Description:
Thermal Intelligence introduces Basecamp, a smart, ultra-efficient flameless heater, light tower & generator. Basecamp delivers market leading efficiency as a flameless heater, provides a 360° LED lighting package and 27 kW of available power generation. A 2,500-hour service interval comes standard. Basecamp utilizes proprietary SmartTalk technology providing 24/7 remote monitoring & control. Rather than endlessly patrolling your field assets and checking for problems, Basecamp alerts you long before anything could go wrong. easily eliminates unnecessary manpower, optimizes site efficiencies, and eliminates the risks of winter work.
Utilizing proprietary 2-way communication, every Basecamp is visible and streaming data to relevant dashboards. Whether it is engine alerts, low fuel, or an improperly secured structure, Basecamp does the heavy lifting, so everyone else can stay focused on bringing projects in on-time and under-budget. Basecamp uses less fuel, dramatically lowers operating costs, and greatly reduces your carbon footprint through the following innovations:
• Three-In-One integrated platform provides heat, power & lights while eliminating industry wide worksite inefficiencies.
• SmartTalk Telematics Solution offers 24/7 remote monitoring & control delivering the peace of mind for both you and your team, even when Mother Nature shows her cold side.
• Recirculation - Our heaters draw in air from the heated environment. They will even draw waste heat from one area and repurpose it to another area. This feature can easily increase efficiencies by up to 46 percent.
• Remote Thermostat - Worksites are often overheated to offset falling outdoor temperatures and mitigate risk of failure. This significantly increases heat loss and fuel costs. Save on fuel and reduce risk of heater failure with remote temperature control and monitoring. Monitor heater performance from anywhere and set your temperature exactly where you need it.