link belt atc-822

[Treeline]

View attachment 68449

Great post. I actually ended up purchasing a link belt htc8640hl truck crane for many of the reasons you mentioned above. I’ve already had it on a job we wouldn’t have been able to get a boom truck to. Chart is far better than the 38 ton altecs I was looking at. I’ve got 105’ of boom which has been perfect so far. I’m definitely glad I steered away from the little all terrain I was considering above. It already takes us a good bit of time to plywood into a yard and get crane set up. Swinging a job every day would definitely cost us.

 

[Rooted.Tree.Solutions]

Like to share my thoughts and experience As we were in a similar situation a couple years ago when we got serious about purchasing A crane....

We purchased a Grove TMS180 at the beginning of this year. We liked it’s somewhat compact size, and we were able to pay cash for it. With 70’ of boom the jib had to go on all the time. It just hasn’t been worth it. We’re glad we got it because we’ve learned a lot, now we’re looking to sell it and buy something with at least 100’ of main boom.

 

[Fivepoints]

We have a tms300 that has a 104' main boom. It has 81' of live boom and the rest is a manual pin dead stick. Putting the dead stick out is easier and faster than the jib. If a bit more is needed, the jib and main boom is 113' with the dead stick in. Everything out is 136'.

It works well for crane work in our area. Sometimes its a bit on the small side for some of the larger trees we work on. We occasionally rent a 70 ton crane. The tms300 still takes care of 99% of our crane work. Sometimes its to large of a crane to fit in residential area.

 

[Treeline]

We purchased a Grove TMS180 at the beginning of this year. We liked it’s somewhat compact size, and we were able to pay cash for it. With 70’ of boom the jib had to go on all the time. It just hasn’t been worth it. We’re glad we got it because we’ve learned a lot, now we’re looking to sell it and buy something with at least 100’ of main boom.

If you do strictly in town work I’d look at a truck crane. They have charts that are much better than equally sized boom trucks. And they are more affordable than boom trucks on the used market. If you travel or chase storms I’d get a boom truck. Part of me wishes I could jump in mine and go chase a storm but my top speed is 55 and it takes a while to get there so long distance storm work isn’t feasible. If I was buying new I would strongly consider the new manitex 50128. Those things look niceeee.