Omni directional forklift

Check this link out. Don't know if its been posted before, but wow this could save some time.
I want to drive this bad ass baby.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPmC4KPvOfg

Not like it's a speed machine, just that it can go sideways.. saw them on SBS about a onth or so ago, some dudes building this prototype used em.

damn that would be great at work but wouldn tbe able to lift some of the stuff we have.
Listerine can be heavy shit sometimes.

Being in the forklift industry i'm always interested to see new stuff as it doesn't happen very often. Only really useful in a small workshop or warehouse where they are trying to cram more crap in rather than move to bigger premises. I reckon these would be a good one off machine, where only a few people drive it. Purely because damage would be limited. In the larger warehousing sites there can be 50 or more drivers and trying to find out who tore one of the little wheels off would be impossible.
Another issue is the technology involved, sooooo many things to shit themselves/ get tampered with. Many a driver is a closet vandal. i like how the mention a lift lock out in the event of a fault, thats helpful when the forks are 4 metres up in racking and it locks out because it blows a fuse

And as gpxpunk mentioned, it would only have a small lift capacity, maybe 2000kg, which is fine for your run of the mill chep pallet, but anything over that is stoppie territory

very true i would love to see dhl get even look at it hahaha, they would have to cut our bonuses even more to pay for all the repaires they would need lol.
We have 50+ drivers at our sight and most of the time all the trucks are in need of repair from wheels, i dont think they would last a day at our site haha

Beats the Hell out of the old peice of crap fourway we used at Alcan.
Don't know what you mean about "closet vandal" drivers, you would never catch me on nightshift back in the eighties with the tynes stuck up against the wall doind a burnout
As you say, good in a small wharehouse but probably not so good where the speed is more important or where you are constantly going out in the rough old bitumised (term used loosely) yard to grab 5 mtr long Logs or billets

As one who has spent many years repairing and hiring 2 - 5T forks to civil and the mining industry , I reckon great idea for a small (minimal staffed) factory / warehouse . but as you lot said , not much chop in the real world!!

Can you imagine operators doing pre starts including a full roller inspection ??? NOT!!!!!!!!!!


And yeah - how the hell can you do burnouts on this thing???? [2 - 2.5T Komatsu/Cat/Mitsi are best )

or going flat cht into a wet section and hard turning. lol drifting forks are fun.