Clear view of the future

The new crane’s cab is designed to give operators a clear view of their working environment. Ciano and his team had an equally clear vision of what they wanted to offer customers.

“We set out to design a crane that in terms of load capacity could satisfy the needs of the modern jobsite in the different geographies where we expect to see this crane positioned. This meant an increased lifting capacity: approximately 30% when compared to the MRT223.

“We then focused on improving the three main movements across speeds, control and usability, to effectively reduce the cycle times and to improve movement accuracy. Safe erection and safe maintenance was also a top priority for the MRT234 during conceptualization; we wanted to elevate safety while enabling faster install times.” 

Bringing the crane to market took over a year.  Ciano says, “Raimondi’s team spent 14 months in total developing the new topless tower MRT234. This is from inception stage, literally the day we did the first conceptual drawing, to the final test completion which just occurred now. Our design team worked for seven consecutive months clocking a total of 3200 design hours alone.

“Our R&D team worked with various suppliers for four months to build the prototype. The final stage of testing took three months – this included preassembly of the crane, evaluating many different types of configuration, and all of our structural tests.”

The MRT234 offers benefits both to the medium-to-large contractors and hire fleets it targets, and to their operators.  Ciano says, “Thanks to its performance and its flexibility in terms of jib and tower configurations, this crane can be advantageously employed on a wide variety of jobsites.

“One of the particular strengths of the MRT234 is the Raimondi flattop design, allowing it to be installed on crowded jobsites that necessitate many cranes onsite operating simultaneously that require overfly. Based on our experience with the previous models that showcase this overfly-friendly design, we’re certain the MRT234 will be welcomed in the European, Middle Eastern and Australian markets.

“The crane operator will immediately notice a huge improvement in performance and control. We have worked to increase the speeds of the slewing and trolley movements—an approximate 30% enhancement in these aspects—while enabling smoothness of motion and heightening accuracy, ultimately increasing productivity and reducing margin of error.

“The crane is heavily geared toward user experience, and these UI/UX centric features, pioneered by Silicon Valley’s technology companies, when applied to heavy lifting machinery result in a high-performance product that boasts extreme operator ease onsite.”

The MRT234 has a maximum length jib of 70m and a maximum capacity of 12t, in four fall configuration. At maximum radius, it can lift 2250kg with Ultralift mode. It comes a standard 45kW winch or a more powerful 55kW version.

The first units have already been sold, with the first due for delivery to Raimondi’s Swiss agent InterKran this month (August 2017), followed by two MRT234s to Australian agent, Strictly Cranes.