Tony McC wrote:Do the manuals give a plate force value?
The effectiveness of plate compactors can be quite complex. the simplest value is total mass ÷ plate area, but the force of the eccentric vibration unit has some effect and can complicate matters.
I've not seen a value listed as such, I'll try and dig out the actual figures that it does give.
Used it this evening for the first time in anger - was a little concerned because it was positively crawling over the soil (maybe due to the vacuum of the slightly muddy stuff), however, once it hit the rubble that I'd chucked in as a bit of deep infill, it positively flew and I had trouble holding it back.
Guess the many passes over the Type1 won't take me as long as I'd originally thought.
Incidentally, I was going to lay the type1 as two seperate 50mm layers, compacting the first layer 4 or 5 times and the second 5 or 6. This is more so that I can play it by ear over the compactibilty of the plate - I'd hate to chuck all 100mm down and then find that the plate wasn't compacting it properly.
Apart from being more time consuming, is there anything funadmentally wrong with my plan?
Yes they hardly work on wet soil, you are lucky it didn't get bogged down they take some pulling out, you wouldn't do that easily. i would stick with the one layer, your time could be spent doing summat else. by the way even wacker plates can cause H A V S so take regular breaks from it.
I've got some of that foamy pipe lagging stuff which I put on the handle to provide even more cushioning, but I'll still e taking breaks (it helps that I'm lazy and need regular cuppa's)