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30 June 2015 by Daniel Searle

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Manitowoc opened the doors of its Crane Care facility at Saint Pierre de Chandieu, near Lyon in France, to launch the new Crane Control System (CCS) on its Potain MDT City range of tower cranes, and two operator lift systems.

The MDT range now includes the MDT 109, MDT 139, MDT 189 and MDT 219, between 55m and 65m high and with lifting capacities of 6t to 10t. The new cranes are all based on previous MDT City cranes but incorporate the CCS, offering a range of benefits including enabling the operator to set the limit switches, load limiter and moment limiter from within the cab, all of which allow a crane to be commissioned on-site in 15 minutes.

The CCS also improves performance and generates a load chart increase, and increases safety with real-time monitoring to ensure proper operation of the crane. Maintenance is made more straightforward with an on-screen maintenance tool and an optional CraneStar Diag remote monitoring tool.

Also introduced at the event in central France were Manitowoc's two operator lift systems, the internal CabLift and the externally-mounted TCL, developed in collaboration with Alimak Hek. The French Recommendation R.459 stipulated in 2014 that any tower crane of more than 60m would require motorised access to the cab, and that as of 2017 this would apply to all towers over 30m.

Both lifts are compatible with the full range of Potain's K Mast systems, from 1.6m to 2.45m wide, and are available new or as retrofits. The CabLift system features an operator platform above the lift, enabling workers to use it while erecting the tower sections.
The systems both provide speeds of 24m a minute, and will be available from the beginning of 2016.

One of the new MDTs with Crane Control System
The Potain externally-mounted operator lift, called the TCL
The view from the cab of one of the new cranes
Visitors from Europe viewing the CabLift internal operator lift.
The CabLift can be retrofitted onto any existing Potain tower crane
Manitowoc's Refik Ozkan shows the inner workings of the new CCS control system.