Just realized I was running my cutterhead too fast in silt

An old timer on a job in Mobile Bay told me I was 'stirring soup, not moving dirt' with my pump speed. I dropped the RPMs by about 15% and the suction improved almost immediately. Anyone else find a sweet spot for different bottom materials?

3 comments

3 Comments

kai4635d ago

But what if that old timer was working with totally different gear? My experience has been that sometimes you need that extra speed to break up the really packed silt, otherwise it just clogs. Maybe the sweet spot is way wider than we think, and dropping the RPMs just fixed a different problem you had that day.

dylan_rodriguez5d ago

Oh man, I was totally in that camp too. I found out the hard way that slower with more patience actually cleared more silt for me, just like jamiegreen said. It felt wrong but the results were way better.

jamiegreen5d ago

Honestly, that old timer probably saved me from myself, because I've definitely been the guy proudly stirring the world's worst soup. Kai463 has a point about different gear, but for me it was about learning to listen to the pump instead of just cranking it. The sound changes when you're actually moving dirt instead of just spinning water. My sweet spot in silt is way slower than I ever thought it should be, and I felt like an idiot when it finally clicked.