5 tips to maximise your HBC remote control
Having a remote control can be life-changing for your crane or machine operation. It increases safety, productivity and efficiency while reducing costs. But are you making full use of your remote control and how do you make it work better for you? Here’s 5 ways on how to maximise your HBC remote control.
1. Ensure line of sight
As remote control work with radio frequencies, it is important that there are minimal obstacles between the transmitter and receiver for maximum performance. However, certain application scenarios may require controlling a machine from a physically separated area – for example when the operator is in a cab or in a protected control room. Such a physical separation can impair transmission of radio signals. To solve this problem, install an external antenna (focus E) outside the room and connect it to the transmitter via cable. focus E will send the control commands to the receiver and thus neutralize the shielding effect of the cab or control room. focus E ensures a perfectly working radio connection even in such challenging conditions.
2. Take care of your batteries
Li-ion exchange batteries by HBC-radiomatic ensure first-class performance. In relation to their energy density, they are very light, highly resilient and extremely durable. In addition, they offer much more power and can be charged more quickly than older battery types. When carefully maintained, the batteries are able to last even longer. Here’s some tips for you:
- Charge the battery only with the respective HBC charger.
- Charge the battery at an ambient temperature between 0 – 45 °C (32 – 113 °F).
- Always charge the battery completely before initial use. This ensures that the battery has its full capacity available for its first use.
- To prevent overheating, remove all carrying bags and protection covers from devices with integrated batteries.
- Always charge the battery completely before initial use. This ensures that the battery has its full capacity available for its first use.
- For storing Li-ion batteries, a battery charge of 30 – 50 % is ideal. Charge an empty battery for approx. 1 hour to reach this level of charge.
- Li-ion batteries loose capacity that cannot be recovered when stored for longer periods. Therefore, charge the batteries at intervals not exceeding 3 months.
3. Demand Feedback
It is useful to have feedback right at your fingertips (or transmitter). Operator can be notified about crane or machine information, error notifications or warnings in real time, and react accordingly. This function thus offers additional safety and ideal operating comfort. With HBC remote control, the feedback function consists of LED light, vibration alarm, or a full graphic LCD/TFT display. You can view the load weight, speed, distance, height or even customized configuration on the 1.7″/3.5″ display in real time. Low battery status can be felt through vibration alarm on your transmitter so you can change battery and never run out of juice again.
4. Know your frequency
In many fields of applications, a considerable amount of radio controls are in simultaneous use – for example on large construction sites or in factories. Such situations are a challenge for the use of wireless machine controls. The simultaneous use of many radio systems on the same frequency channels can lead to frequency conflicts and ultimately to an automatic shut-down of the control. For working situations with an unknown amount of users or an unknown layout of the working environment, such as large construction sites with different mobile machines in use at different times and locations, HBC-radiomatic offers intelligent frequency management technology. HBC’s advanced fully automatic frequency management comes standard with all our 2.4 GHz radio systems. This technology is approved almost worldwide, which makes warehousing much easier: instead of different country-specific high frequency modules, in most cases, just a single 2.4 GHz module can be used.
5. Gain more control
Why control 1 crane when you can control multiple cranes at once? With HBC multi-receiver concept, you can now control up to 8 cranes or equipment with just 1 transmitter. It’s the best way to save cost and increase efficiency.
Not sure which remote control is suitable for your application? Check out our different models or contact us now for a chat!