Tried switching to a synthetic rope on my 100 ton and it acted totally different

Last month I swapped out the wire rope on my Terex boom truck for a synthetic one, thinking it would just be lighter and easier to handle. First three lifts felt completely wrong, the rope had way more stretch than I expected and my load control was off by nearly a foot on a 50 foot pick. I learned that synthetics need a totally different reeving pattern and you have to account for the give in the line. Had to re-do all my friction settings on the drum brake too. Has anyone else dealt with that springy feeling on a long boom with synthetic?

3 comments

3 Comments

taylorellis26d ago

Respectfully, I've been running synthetic on my 130 ton for two years and never had that issue. You probably just didn't tension the drum right before the first lift.

nora_park26d ago

Yeah I had almost the exact same experience the first time I ran synthetic on a 70 ton boom truck. The stretch threw me off bad, I was used to wire where you get almost no give and everything is crisp. I had to basically relearn how to feather the controls because the line would keep moving after I stopped. Tensioning the drum before the first lift helped some but honestly the biggest fix was changing my reeving pattern like you said. I also added a little extra counterweight to compensate for the different feel. It took me a good week of jobs before I stopped overcorrecting on every pick.

jamie77025d ago

Respectfully, you probably just didn't tension the drum right before the first lift" is a pretty bold take, tbh. But honestly, that extra counterweight thing you mentioned... I gotta disagree, that sounds like a bandaid fix more than anything. The stretch in synthetic is real, but if you're adding counterweight just to fight the line bounce, you're just masking the issue instead of learning how the rope actually behaves. I've seen guys do that and it throws off their whole boom angle calc for the rest of the day.