The mini excavator thread

[BUCKLAND]

You havnt lived in Canada because guns are illegal in most cases. And shooting a bear that’s only trying to kill you? That would be against the law.



Could you translate this?

Gravity and hydraulic pressure, use them to your advantage, but be cautious. Gravity will always win if you’re not paying attention.

So because something is illegal means that you can’t have it, correct?

Durp Durp “I live in Canada, that means I can’t have firearms “. Durp durp.

Go suck your Canadian self off. Durp Durp.



Look a bear, what should I do?

 

[BUCKLAND]

3,2

a moose is a different animal. They are very territorial and known to charge at people snowmobiles ect.

Moose are incredibly stupid and strong. Every time I see moose tracks I prep for kill. Snowmobiling and moose make for an interesting sport.

This retard was going to let me pet it the other week

 

[Java230]

WTF just happened in this thread?

 

[Steve300xcw]

He pulled a yota

 

[speed bump]

You havnt lived in Canada because guns are illegal in most cases. And shooting a bear that’s only trying to kill you? That would be against the law.



Could you translate this?

Dude, you're in an excavator. Triple S that bitch with no chance of getting caught because the ex is already there or so my Albertan snow Mexican friends tell me.

 

[WaterH]

So shit dont fall out of the bucket

That’s why I use the thumb, after I picked it up with the bucket.

This retard was going to let me pet it the other week

If you are going to pet him, I would be careful who you call a retard.

Dude, you're in an excavator. Triple S that bitch with no chance of getting caught because the ex is already there or so my Albertan snow Mexican friends tell me.

Now you’re talking about the code inspector again.

 

[Steve300xcw]

That’s why I use the thumb, after I picked it up with the bucket.

You are good enough. That I cant tell when you are trolling

 

[Grnjp92]

That’s why I use the thumb, after I picked it up with the bucket.


If you are going to pet him, I would be careful who you call a retard.



Now you’re talking about the code inspector again.

If he pets it.... well ... he dead...

 

[WaterH]

If he pets it.... well ... he dead...

True story
When I lived in Canada, I knew some guys that were out on snow mobiles and came across a moose that broke through the ice. He was treading water for along time and was real tired. Those guys were petting him and he was real calm. They chopped the ice in a path to the side of the lake. They led the moose in the broken ice to the side. Once he got his feet on the bottom, he ran up on shore and laid down to sleep. The guys were tired too and just sat on their machines smoking and drinking. After about 15 minutes, the moose jumped up and tried to kill them. So much for gradatude.

 

[Gbkeith]

You are good enough. That I cant tell when you are trolling

It’s amazing, isn’t it? After all this time I still can’t make up my mind if he’s a genius that’s fucking with us or if he really is that stupid.

 

[Steve300xcw]

It’s amazing, isn’t it? After all this time I still can’t make up my mind if he’s a genius that’s fucking with us or if he really is that stupid.

I keep telling myself that he's just fucking with us. But then I remember he's from floriduh and I'm not so sure

 

[AlxJ64]

Interestingly enough, I locked the cab of my excavator Friday night because I left it way out on the trails in the woods where I was working; not because of worries of trespassers, but rather because the trail cameras had picked up a bear the night before, and then actually it went right by the machine on Friday night based on where it was picked up on a camera. I wish I had parked in view of the camera. I have seen the videos of what those things do if they manage to get in a car so I laughed to myself "better safe than sorry if Yogi starts pulling on things".

 

[AlxJ64]

So I put together a ripper for the Bobcat E48 of mine. I don't know if this should go in here or the homemade attachments thread.

Anyways, I did some different things because I had the material on hand, but the front has a knife edge and the rear has a saw edge cut out of 1/4" AR400. Then the rest of the ripper is a center piece of 1/4" A50, and then 4 more pieces of 3/8" A50, making the whole shank 1-3/4" thick. I put a pointed tooth shank on it from Titan.

The "blades" are replaceable inserts. The center core has a reduced shape that also is indexed so that the blades lock themselves in place under load, similar to a carbide parting tool blade or other replaceable insert blades. There are 3/8" roll pins that just act to retain / locate the blades. Knock those out and pull the blades out.

Why so much laminate?Its all my little CNC will do!

The Bobcat uses an Xchange system so building that adapter from scratch was as much the battle as anything else. I need to dial in my design a little bit but then I have a few other attachments to construct.

This is the closest it gets with the dipper all the way folded in and curling the ripper. The arc starts to take it away after this point meeting the boom cylinder guard.

Yes, I know the cutters are going to get folded up and damaged quickly by bigger rocks but for the time being, they should do a good job at helping break roots prior to digging up stumps. I have an 18" Bobcat brand tooth bucket now and its pretty good at breaking roots and things but not always.

This was not terribly expensive for me to build in comparison of the cost of buying one.

 

[Kriptonite]

Man that's awesome, been wanting to build one myself out of a used dozer ripper.

 

[urjb]

AlxJ64 .. got more deets on the x-change coupler to share?

I have one that’s on my breaker.. it’s bolt on.. and I’ve thought about borrowing it since I never use the breaker..

I’m gathering parts for a log splitter project.

I haven’t taken the time to reverse engineer the darn thing.

 

[AlxJ64]

AlxJ64 .. got more deets on the x-change coupler to share?

I have one that’s on my breaker.. it’s bolt on.. and I’ve thought about borrowing it since I never use the breaker..

I’m gathering parts for a log splitter project.

I haven’t taken the time to reverse engineer the darn thing.

I have the hydraulic Xchange system on my machine, but it uses pretty much the same coupler but has hydraulic pins that pull in and out vs just driving a whole ass pin through the eyes. The bushings I made, and they have a shoulder that is sloppy inside the bore there. I got all the internal "guide web plates" setup so that as you shove the attachment on, it guides itself into the taper and fits snug at both ends. Then once it fit on there, I pushed the pins out and located the bushings on them and tacked them. Then pulled it off to burn it in as I didn't want to heat up the seals in the exchange coupler on the machine. Ohh, the bushings also have a chamfer in them so that if things are off a little, they will help align the bracket as the pins come out. On the non-hydraulic X change units, those just have a blank pin with a bolt that comes out.

I just welded this to the top of the ripper plate. I have some minor dimension adjustments to make but may be able to replicate the parts for people building their own attachments. Theres plate kits on eBay and such, and I even ordered one. It was $125 and its very poorly drawn and cut. I was displeased with it so started from scratch on my own.

 

[urjb]

Interesting..
I have access to a plasma table..

Not familiar with the hydraulic x-change, but we had a Cat 305.5 with their hydraulic coupler and IMO it wasn’t worth a shit if it got mud in it.. yours work good?

 

[Squamch]

You havnt lived in Canada because guns are illegal in most cases. And shooting a bear that’s only trying to kill you? That would be against the law.

As usual when you're talking about Canada, you're full of shit.

Shooting bears for defence of life is legal, there are courses you can take, in fact, have to take, for some jobs. You can also get carry permits for handguns for some of those jobs.


Also, black bears are of little concern. I've never heard of one fucking with a running machine, although they will put a hurting on oil and gas jugs for some damn reason.

 

[AlxJ64]

Interesting..
I have access to a plasma table..

Not familiar with the hydraulic x-change, but we had a Cat 305.5 with their hydraulic coupler and IMO it wasn’t worth a shit if it got mud in it.. yours work good?

Machine has 42 hours on it so far, and already the seals for the Xchange pins are weeping; so time will tell. In the reading and conversations I have had, it boils down to operator's level of give a shit and skill. This is a little more tedious to swap attachments with than a pin grabber and is also very susceptible to debris; my ripper is a tight enough fit already that just taking it off after the photos I had to slightly embed the shank tang and pull some. The the excavator came with the hydraulic Xchange feature as part of the package. I let a friend play on the thing some this past weekend and she had zero operator experience and was able to drop the bucket and reattach it with someone spotting for her.

 

[72Pstroke]

I have a Bobcat 337 mini ex, and the quick attach and bucket were cobbled together horribly when i bought it. I salvaged the machine side of the X-change, and bought one of these for the bucket.
It is a nice piece.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266785995023

 

[grumpy356]

 

[bgaidan]

Auction yesterday was loaded with all the usual Chinese minis and attachments. I was bidding on some fork carriages and grapples for my telehandler and ended up picking up a few other things since I knew I'd be making the drive.


But my favorite thing I saw sell was this "hedge trimmer".

I actaully bid on it for fun, but it ended up going for like $700, which is a really high price to kill yourself.

This fits on the typical 1-2 ton Chinese minis, which mostly come with open cabs. If they made this with a fairly heavy shroud around it, I could see some limited use for it.

This was the runner up. I actually don't hate this and may see if I can get one on the next machine order I make. Just wouldn't pay what it went for at the auction. I could actually see this being somewhat useful in keeping my hundreds of feet of grapevine covered fence in order. I did one small piece with a gas trimmer and my arms almost fell off.

And then this one. Again, I could see this being useful to break up big diameter chunks of logs in to something more manageable to get on the splitter. I think it uses the same motor as the augers, so I'm tempted to try to source the "drill" point and adapt it to my auger motor.

 

[V30crewcab]

thats a lawsuit waiting to happen! my friend knew someone that was brushogging something high with a bobcat. it shot a blade off and went thru his skull. he bled out before anyone could get to him. keep it low and not aimed at yourself!

 

[Bowe]

Thoughts on this unit? Price doesn’t appear bad for the extras included. Is 13.5hp enough for a 1.5 ton? I swear I’ve seen 1 ton versions with 18hp.

 

[bgaidan]

Thoughts on this unit? Price doesn’t appear bad for the extras included. Is 13.5hp enough for a 1.5 ton? I swear I’ve seen 1 ton versions with 18hp.

Pretty reasonable for the features. It'll have chinese pumps and motors, but not a big deal and parts are getting more and more available for them now that they're everywhere. Highly, highly likely that that was sold at a local auction and is just getting flipped. Some parts of the country they're going as cheap as like $3.5-4k at auction. Around me they're still fetching $7-8k. I'm not sure I can even get the machines in to the country for what some of them are selling for at auctions. But they're bringing in dozens of containers and dumping them at every auction house around the country and just probably only making a couple hundred bucks apiece on them....must just add up in volume.


Highly unlikely that it weighs 1.5 tons. Probably closer to 1-1.2. The "1.8" ton machines that I have are actually like 1.5-1.6. I just ordered another batch the other day and they were really pushing some "2 ton" ones on me. I almost bit but then remember to ask what the actual weight is. They send me a picture of it hanging on a scale showing about 1.35 metric tons.....less than the 1.8's that I currently have.

You really can't go wrong for that price, unless you have the time/energy to try to get a better deal at an auction.

I will say, after getting mine with the Kubota diesel, the Briggs is really loud and annoying to run now. But you'll be paying at least twice as much to get a similar machine with a Kubota or Perkins.

 

[Wades_76_cj7]

How much will those little bastards pick up? A buddy has a 4.5t Takeuchi with a hydro thumb, 12 and 24" bucket. with the 12" bucket and thumb it works great for picking up firewood logs to buck them up. No bending over or the tip of the saw bar hitting the dirt on accident.

 

[bgaidan]

How much will those little bastards pick up? A buddy has a 4.5t Takeuchi with a hydro thumb, 12 and 24" bucket. with the 12" bucket and thumb it works great for picking up firewood logs to buck them up. No bending over or the tip of the saw bar hitting the dirt on accident.

Keeping the stick fairly tight to the cap, I think my 1.8 will do 8-900 lbs.

 

[Blacksheep10]

How much will those little bastards pick up? A buddy has a 4.5t Takeuchi with a hydro thumb, 12 and 24" bucket. with the 12" bucket and thumb it works great for picking up firewood logs to buck them up. No bending over or the tip of the saw bar hitting the dirt on accident.

A 45 is a really nice size mini though! I have three friends with a mini and they all went and bought a 35 because of ease of hauling and stuff. You are always out of reach. 40 is where you feel like you can actually dig. Another buddy has a 45 and I like it, perfect size if you have a 3/4t truck and 7ks under the trailer. I bought a 55 w a thumb and it’s heavy enough I need to get a different trailer to go very far

 

[YotaAtieToo]

So I put together a ripper for the Bobcat E48 of mine. I don't know if this should go in here or the homemade attachments thread.

Anyways, I did some different things because I had the material on hand, but the front has a knife edge and the rear has a saw edge cut out of 1/4" AR400. Then the rest of the ripper is a center piece of 1/4" A50, and then 4 more pieces of 3/8" A50, making the whole shank 1-3/4" thick. I put a pointed tooth shank on it from Titan.

The "blades" are replaceable inserts. The center core has a reduced shape that also is indexed so that the blades lock themselves in place under load, similar to a carbide parting tool blade or other replaceable insert blades. There are 3/8" roll pins that just act to retain / locate the blades. Knock those out and pull the blades out.

Why so much laminate?Its all my little CNC will do!

The Bobcat uses an Xchange system so building that adapter from scratch was as much the battle as anything else. I need to dial in my design a little bit but then I have a few other attachments to construct.

This is the closest it gets with the dipper all the way folded in and curling the ripper. The arc starts to take it away after this point meeting the boom cylinder guard.

Yes, I know the cutters are going to get folded up and damaged quickly by bigger rocks but for the time being, they should do a good job at helping break roots prior to digging up stumps. I have an 18" Bobcat brand tooth bucket now and its pretty good at breaking roots and things but not always.

This was not terribly expensive for me to build in comparison of the cost of buying one.

That's pretty sweet, I've heard rippers are awesome for brushing out property and obviously ripping up rock.

I would have stepped the laminates in size and welded the full perimeter though. I don't see those little holes holding very long. Unless I'm missing something.

 

[AlxJ64]

That's pretty sweet, I've heard rippers are awesome for brushing out property and obviously ripping up rock.

I would have stepped the laminates in size and welded the full perimeter though. I don't see those little holes holding very long. Unless I'm missing something.

Not much rock to rip with it around here, and I have an Adco rock bucket for the machine now anyways.

I've got 15 hours of use on the ripper and no signs at all of the laminate not holding up. The AR blades are also still in decent shape as well and will pop through a root like a hot knife through butter. I'll feel the machine snag one so I work the bucket cylinder back and forth with some tension on it and it cuts right through.

I did add a gusset inside of the Xchange adapter plate as the flat cap plate that ears and shank attach to was starting to distort some. Otherwise, its working great and my biggest gripe is that the shank tip from Titan is wearing way faster than I was expecting it to.

Its no slouch of an attachment.

I'm also working on a root /brush rake for the machine, as well as an Xchange to Qtach adapter so that I can run my pallet forks and easily swap to my auger for the skid steer, but run them on the mini. I have improved my Xchange design to use 3x3 box tubing. Makes assembly much easier.