Conexpo 2008 exclusive: Topcon's 3D-MC2 speeds up grading

Machine control specialist Topcon had a host of new products on display at Conexpo, perhaps the most exciting being its 3D-MC² system, which is said to make grading with a dozer twice as fast and twice as accurate.

Essentially, the system is faster than the older generation. It overcomes the lag which cause either corrections to happen too late and impair accuracy or the dozer has to travel more slowly to allow the system to ‘keep up’. “By increasing the system speed by a factor of 10, the dozer can travel at twice the speed it could before and accuracy is even better,” said Ray O’Connor, president of Topcon Positioning Systems.

Also new is Sitelink, which uses GPS technology to track machines and monitor key parameters. It also sets a wireless radio network between the machines on site, meaning big savings on fees for connecting every item to external communication networks. This allows data transmitted to one machine to be shared among all the machines on site, and all can be remotely monitored.