Crisafulli Sales Engineer's field report (May 2003)
The Rotomite-6000 was a pleasure to operate. We dredged bottom ash and silt. The Rotomite Cobra Cutterhead's down pressure and articulation capabilities make the Rotomite-6000 effective against crusted sludge.
The Customer had an unsatisfactory experience with a competitor's dredge, which they had rented the prior year: the hydraulics were plumbed wrong on the competitor's dredge and were not corrected for 3 weeks during which time they couldn't dredge. When finally fixed, the competitor's dredge was ineffective because its cutterhead was on a cable with no down pressure, and no articulation. In addition, it was difficult to use the competitor's drive system. The competitor's dredge had no traction in ponds without a solid bottom. When maneuvering this other dredge, a constant problem was being able to keep the float line from getting tangled in the drive system. In addition, the customer found the competitor's float-line to be awkward to handle; it was 50' sections with floats clamped around it. The customer had to use a backhoe to move the long, heavy tubing sections; and the floats continually moved to inconvenient spots on the tubing.
Our customer was pumping through approximately 2 miles of pipe (the majority was down hill) with two booster pumps in the pipeline. The Rotomite-6000 pumped 1700 GPM of slurry through 220 feet of float-line with 10' of lift.
The customer remarked favorably regarding improvements Crisafulli made since the Rotomite 180P. and was impressed with the Rotomite-6000's production capabilities.