Ditching

What this mode is for

Ditching is the primary workflow for digging surface drainage ditches with any blade-equipped implement the controller can raise and lower — pull-type and pulled-frame scrapers, ditchers, rotary ditchers, and pull dozers all work the same way in this mode. You drive the planned route to capture the existing ground, then Slope-IQ designs a smooth target ditch line that drains the right direction with the minimum cut. You can let Slope-IQ build the design automatically (Best-Fit), pick survey points to control the slope yourself (Guided), or place free-form vertices on the chart (Freeform). The blade goes up and down automatically once you start grading.

Use Ditching when:

• You have a planned ditch route in the field and your machine can drive the centerline.
• The job will likely take more than one pass to reach grade.
• You need volume estimates and a saved design you can resume tomorrow.

Workflow at a glance:

1. Connect to the controller.
2. Survey the ditch route end-to-end (or load a previous survey).
3. Open Slope-IQ, accept or tweak the design, tap Implement.
4. Set the benchmark (auto-prompt if you loaded the survey from disk).
5. Decide whether to enable Auto-Nudge for multi-pass grading.
6. Tap Start and run the ditch. Use Nudge if you need to back off depth temporarily.
7. Tap Stop when finished. The job auto-saves.

The next pages walk through each step in detail.

In this chapter

• Before you start
• Quick start
• Surveying the ditch
• Surveying a run you can't drive
• Designing with Slope-IQ
• Auto-grading the ditch
• Nudge: temporary depth adjustment
• Auto-Nudge: multi-pass grading
• Calibration & benchmarks
• Tips & gotchas
• Troubleshooting