I operate a pc1800 right now but i have 2 and half years on a pc3000. I was wondering are there any other mass excavator operators on here to share experiences and pictures. The bucket for the ex3600 is supposed to be there when i get there today.:usa
No bucket yet but superintendent said by the 16th of this month it will start coming in. With all these operators on this site no one wants to talk about swinging the big iron?
Probably not allot of people who have even seen something that big, much less operated one. Me for one!!! LOL Just how big is it? What is involved in putting it together? I bet it would make a great episode on Discovery. If you can, I'd sure enjoy seeing pictures of it being assembled. Thanks, Eddie
Then i feel lucky cause i started on a 7 yard ex1100 when i was 20. The ex3600 has a 32 cu.yd. dipper, and yes as soon as it starts rolling in i will take lots of pictures. I wis i could get Mike from dirty jobs. Its going to be the biggest in sweet home Alabama.
Wow, lucky you. That sounds like a killer machine. What does it feel like to run it? What kind of jobs do you use it on, Jon?
What do you mine in Alabama that is large enough for that size machine? What size trucks do you load?
I've never run a 3600, but I have spent time on a 2500. That would be the largest hoe I have ever run, but I have spent a brief amount of time on an RH200 is a shovel configuration. Most of the time, I spend on dozer on dumps, but I do get to play around the big ones doing pit clean up from time to time. The unfortunate thing is that they always want to put the folks who like to work on the dumps, and the ones who don't in the pits, and dang it, I like to work. Rumours are that next cycle at work, they will be posting a position as a shovel oiler. I'm probably too far down the list to get in on that, but I'm sure gonna apply. So what kind of operation are you working in? Mine, quarry, big construction job? Brian
We mine 3 seams of coal the deepest being 230 ft. I will be loading 3 789s with 2 more on the way. We have around 15 years of permitted reserve. On the pc1800 i load 5 100 ton trucks Cat and Hitachi . It feels like your setting in a super nice office chair the hoe weighs so much there is very little vibration. I feel super lucky 27 years old and running one of the biggest they make their are only a couple bigger.
I just done part of a 12 hour night shift on this one, these pics are a couple of years old but it is still going strong. Not sure on the bucket size, in dirt it can load 160 -170 tones in 4 buckets in about two and a half minutes average at about 3500 tons or more an hour. In coal a couple of days ago I was doing 5 buckets for 150 ton loads in two minutes 20 secs at 2700 an hour and we got 26700 ton and 182 loads for the shift. All those figures can vary a fair bit with different materials and pit conditions. Nice machine to operate, we have a 5500 here too, I get on it a bit but the 3600 is a nicer machine to operate. I'll post a few pics, the truck it's loading is a 630E , 160/70 ton payload and one pic is one of our pits and the excavator is a Liebherr 994, look for the grader it's a 16H.
Welcome to the Forums BigDiggerJon.:drinkup I was up your way Monday visiting some friends in Double Springs. If I had to take a guess, would the outfit you work for be Drummond?
Thanks CM1995 its not Drummond but Ceder Lake Mining in Parrish. Most of the Drumond pits are shutting down. We are Alabama Power Mineral cost plus mine we are one of the lucky mines as most are cutting hours back and we are expanding. Nice pics diggerop the bucket to ours came in tonight and i hope to post a picture of the unscratched iron on here tomorrow. ALso is that all the loads the machine can load in twelve hours, i average 210 loads in 10 hours on a pc 1800 and 200 on the pc3000. But i have been in the pressure cooker for 6 years now.
I was a mechanic that always ran the gear when you fixed it and take way more than a passing interest in my profession, where i first worked with big diggers we had 2 RH120 and a 5230 and i would get in with the operators on night shift and see what they did and then have a go, in the end i could keep 4 789,s on a cycle to about 80% of the regular operator. I moved to another mine with EX1800,2500 AND PC3000 AND 5500 and i just knew i had to have a go on the $9 million dollar machine!! was good to swing it and i could keep 4 830,s going on it but the floor i would leave behind used to give the D10 a bit to do!!! There is an in cab youtube vid from the PC5500 where i used to work.
Hullo diggerjon, those numbers are only average and that was not a full 12 hrs, that day we were down a truck for about 1 1/2 hrs and we stopped for 1/2 an hour for fuel and maintenance also in coal there is at least 1 sometimes 2 more buckets per truck, it would do more than that in dirt. Usually smaller machines are quicker too, thats why I like the 3600 over the 5500,the 55 will load a lot more and fill the same trucks in 3 bucket but it feels a lot more heavy and slower. There is just too many things that can influence production that it is probably nearly impossible to compare machines unless they are the same size, in the same material and the same trucks. We always work on tons anyway and as long as we get the target tons for the power station we're laughing and then we'll go and dig dirt. I've operater PC 1800 and 3000 too but the 3600 is pretty well in another class, you'll like it :thumbsup they are a good machine to operate. Ours is an early model and has had problems with cracking , I hope the new ones are a lot better. Take lots of pics during assembly if you can, they never look the same again.
Thanks for the reminder about videos gav. This is one I put together about 5 years ago with the Hitachi 3500, its sitting in the graveyard now http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=AU&hl=en-GB&v=1NBIMuPrdOk
Hello BigDiggerJon, Is yours EX 3600 nickname Pumpkin? If so I have seen that machine at July. Nice machine!
Ya know, the size of this equipment boggles my mind. I am unfamiliar with anything like this. Can someone explain how the process of coal mining works over time. How deep, how far, how wide. What do you do with the overburden? And then, is the coal ready to burn right out of the ground?