“At one time or another over the years, I’ve operated just about every brand of excavator on the market. At one of my previous jobs, I was operating a Hitachi ZX200 and pretty much loved it. The comfort, power and just having everything right there at your fingertips. There was no downfall at all, I couldn’t fault the Hitachi” says Ben.

Ben specialises in general construction and earthworks across the greater Wellington, Kapiti coast and Horowhenua region. Since taking delivery, Ben’s been in hot demand putting his new ZX130-5B to work on a roading alignment project in Levin, before moving to some urgent repair jobs down on the Kapiti Coast.

In addition to all the premium features like hose rupture valves, level II FOPs, air conditioning and laminated glass that come standard on the Hitachi excavators, Ben spec’d his ZX130-5B with safety rails, tinted windows and a very advanced, GPS ready, NOX tilt rotator quick coupler that has 360° continuous rotation and a tilt angle of 2 x 50°. This NOX tilt rotator enables Ben to reduce the need to keep repositioning the excavator on the jobsite, thus increasing the ever-important productivity.

Ben describes the partnership of the ZX130-5B with the NOX head as “Absolutely brilliant. I couldn’t think of anything better to have set-up on the machine. The ability to put the bucket into the exact position you need is incredible.”

“The ZX130-5B with the NOX really helps increase productivity. So much so that any machine I get in the future will defiantly have one of these. Like anything different, it took a little time to get the very best out of it but within just a couple of weeks of operating it, I don’t even need to think about it anymore, I just do it. I’ve recently been working on a step gully that’s been washed out and the Hitachi performed brilliantly.

Even with the NOX head the machine is really well balanced and you hardly notice it.”
The ZX130-5B weighs in at 14.5 tonne and is powered by the popular and well proven Isuzu 4JJ1X 4-cylinder, water cooled, turbocharged engine that delivers 77Kw and up to 374Nm of torque, ensuring there’s plenty of performance. Additionally, the ZX130-5B provides more than enough hydraulic oil flow and pressure to guarantee smooth performance of all attachments.

CablePrice Equipment Sales Specialist Cameron Wait says “the ZX130 is a great excavator for general contracting and with the addition of the NOX rotator, it makes this a very versatile machine. Adding the NOX tilt rotator to the Hitachi ZX130-5B was straightforward, with the only real modification being a change of joysticks to accommodate the extra functions required by the NOX”.