Manual Grade

What this mode is for

Manual Grade lets you grade against a single straight slope that you enter by hand — no survey, no design file, no terrain. You type a target grade percent, pick uphill or downhill, drive to your start point, lower the blade, and tap Start. The app locks your current GPS as the 0+00 reference and the blade follows the slope from there.

Manual Grade is not a top-level card on the Home screen. You reach it through two paths:

• Simple Grading → Enter Grade Only. The fastest path. The Simple Grade design dialog is skipped entirely — you go straight to a Manual Grade Grade screen with the inline Set Grade bar along the bottom of the map.
• The Excavator workflow. The Excavator card opens a manual-grade Grade screen with the same inline Set Grade bar; the only differences are the visual-only depth-guidance (no hydraulic commands) and the DIG-specific connection step.

Use Manual Grade when:

• You know the grade you want (e.g. 0.30% downhill) and don't need a cut/fill estimate.
• The job is short or temporary — a short fix, a level pad, a quick footing.
• You want to grade a level pad — 0% is a valid grade in this mode.
• You need to chain several straight legs at different grades — Manual Grade supports multi-segment runs via Change Grade and keeps the segments visible on the profile chart and the map.

Workflow at a glance:

1. Connect to the controller (or DIG for Excavator).
2. From Simple Grading → Enter Grade Only (or the Excavator wizard), the Grade screen opens with the inline Set Grade bar along the bottom of the map (visible whenever grading is idle).
3. Type a target grade, pick Downhill or Uphill, optionally enter a Depth Offset (inches, or cm in metric) to cut below the anchored reference, then tap Set Grade (the button reads Apply on later edits).
4. Drive to the start point, lower the blade.
5. Tap Start, confirm in the Ready to Start? dialog. The app locks 0+00 at your current GPS.
6. Grade. Tap Change Grade when you need a new leg, Stop when finished.

In this chapter

• Before you start
• Quick start
• The Set Grade bar
• What the screen shows before you Start
• Reading the chevrons and using Hold
• Multi-segment runs with Change Grade
• Stop, Resume, and what stays open
• Nudge
• Tips & gotchas
• Troubleshooting