I had seen a Facebook advertisement for the Delta’s about a year ago and thought the concept was forward thinking alternative to a laser level. I was hesitant on purchasing at that time and wanted to see what the consensus would be several months after the product launch.
I purchased a three Delta kit towards the middle of summer this year. In September I used them for the first time. I wanted to dig a trench through a hill in order to drain a small water retention pond that was used to slow runoff down in order to reduce surface erosion. The pond works good for that purpose, but will overflow in heavier rains.
Ended up trenching around 300 feet through the hillside, with a predetermined grade, with some of the grade 8-10 feet below the ground surface. I had used them for “Digging” option with the Delta placed near the bucket. The Delta system kept the grade at the deeper depths. I am pretty good at eye balling the trench depth after I have a reference point…the Delta’s performance was near perfect. At that point, I was sold on the system. It is much easier and quicker to be able to stay in the excavator and trench, than getting off the machine to check the depths of the trench on a regular basis.
So far this fall, I have used them for Delta’s to trench in two-1,450 feet rolls of tile. Two more 1,450’ rolls of tile were delivered a couple of days ago. I suspect weather will keep me from installing the entirety of the
new rolls of tile.
The Delta’s do have a few weather quirks, but Rebecca and the Dirty Devices team responds quickly by email. I’ve been assured that my quirks that I have experienced will be addressed in the next few firmware update(s). This team is dedicated to making the Delta’s a top notch system and I am confident that they will.
One of the quirks I had contacted Rebecca about was inaccurate readings when a temperature inversion is present. The technical team had been pondering data on this for a while and my observations had solidified their suspicions. I was having trench fog form on a cold morning with warm subsurface soil and the elevation readings were inconsistent.
I do like the Delta system and hope the Dirty Devices team will add more job options in the future.