Put to the test
22 August 2012Terex's much-anticipated flagship 1,200-tonner is currently being put through its paces in the cranebuilder's customer acceptance programme. Ron van der Velpen caught the crane being erected by Neeb in Germany.
In 2009, Cranes Today brought readers the first pictures of Terex's heavyweight mobile crane in 2009. Since then, there has been little news of the crane from the company, and the crane has been surrounded by rumours. However, recently, we learnt that the crane is undergoing testing as part of Terex's customer acceptance programme.
The programme is the last step in the development and testing of Terex cranes prior to their going into production. The cranebuilder lends the first unit of a crane to trusted customers, and asks them to use the crane with a Terex engineer on hand. The company uses feedback from the customer to make final modifications or improvements to the design of the crane.
One of the two companies chosen for the customer acceptance programme for the 1,200t AC1000/9 all terrain was Germany's Neeb. Here, the company is shown rigging the crane, one of the first times this has been done by anyone outside of Terex.
Despite its huge capacity, the crane can travel on the road with its boom on within an axle load of 12t. Once at the job site, the crane self-rigs, using just a knuckleboom to set the outriggers.
