Mobile vs industrial valves

Here's another Flint Hydraulics Tech Tip: Mobile style directional control valves are designed to be used on mobile equipment. The principal difference between industrial and mobile directional control valves is that many functions that must be added externally to an industrial valve can be integral with a mobile valve.

Advantages of mobile directional control valves

Here's another Flint Hydraulics Tech Tip: Mobile directional control valves are designed to avoid messy installations that industrial control valves require. Worse than the appearance of such an installation are the negative functional consequences: hydraulic system inefficiency (manifested in excessive heat, noise and fuel usage); system damage (shortened pump life, broken hydraulic lines, cracked cylinders, hydraulic oil degradation, etc.); inadequate control (slow blade response, jerky blade movement, inability to hold blade position, overshooting, etc.)

Directional control valves - then and now

Here's another Flint Hydraulics Tech Tip: In the early days of automated grading, the only practical valve solutions were "industrial valves," those used in factories - not on mobile equipment. When these valves were used to automate earth-moving machines, additional valves had to be installed, resulting in a mass of valves, hoses, adapters, tubes, etc. All this forced into the confined space of a mobile machine was unsightly. Not so today!