The RoGator 600B cab received the top award after being selected to feature in the show’s ‘Agricultural Best Practices Area,’ which brought together 12 professional associations, technical and research institutes along with public agencies.
“The cab demonstrates best practice and shows that protecting the health and safety of operators to this standard is possible,” said Jean-Paul Douzals from Carnot Institute ‘Irstea’, the former French Cemagref research centre near Montpellier, France. “It is also the first to comply with the Category 4 rating and it is currently the only cab on an agricultural machine to achieve this.
“It also sends a message to the industry: Challenger has taken the lead in proving it is possible to construct machines that can and do meet existing standards.”
Meeting the standard* is not easy and requires high quality design and manufacturing to be protect operators from dust, aerosols and vapours, explains Challenger’s Hubertus von Dungern, Manager Product Marketing Application Equipment. “We are very honoured to receive this award, which acknowledges that Challenger is taking a lead in protecting operators’ health by providing the cleanest air in any cab on the market.
“We started with the advantage of having the spacious high quality, pressurised cab from the Challenger MT700, MT800 and MT900 tractors, which gave the RoGator engineers the fundamentals. We have made few modifications to this – apart from sealing the back window and increasing the airflow. Obviously with a sealed and pressurised environment it’s imperative the fan has the capacity to pull in sufficient air and the structure allows it to exit easily.”
An important addition to the system is the special filter that cleans the air to the standard demanded for the Category 4 rating. “It is in this crucial area where our engineers have overcome the technical challenge of not only cleaning the air, but using a filter that still provides sufficient airflow,” he explains. “Now RoGator 600B operators benefit from breathing the cleanest, freshest air available on any farm machine.”
* Category 4: ‘Reducing the quantity of dusts, as specified in 3.2 EN 15695-2:2009, aerosols in 3.3 EN 15695-2:2009 and vapours in 3.4 EN 15695-2:2009’.
