hi, i am looking for 30 ton excavator for earth moving job. A lot of ppl said volvo really can save fuel compare to others. Hence would like to know does it really save than other for earth moving job? how many liter/hour it save ? Pls, need your comment
Couldn't find any unbiased info, but Volvo claims this study Volvo Crawlers
I don't know how much excavators are supposed to burn, but mine will burn 17l/hr running full tilt as fast and hard as i can make it go. However, if i back down the throttle, run at a relaxed rate i burn as low as 12l/hr . Those numbers are on a ec240b, 2300 hrs, 185 hp, 54" mass x bucket, hyd thumb. The work is tree removal, grubbing, ditching. The machine doesn't have any fancy work modes or priority doodads. The only adjustment is the electronic throttle. I am still impressed with the engine. Starts great, runs great, and the engine oil stays clean for a long long time.
B or C-series?
I don't know much about the fuel consumption of Volvos, but the study looks like bunk. A CAT 330C DOES NOT BURN 11.5 GALLONS PER HOUR! I can tell you from experience that for general digging a 330C burns around 27-32L (7-8 gallons)/hour. Now to compare with watglen, my John Deere 200LC burns: 12L/hour grading at 2/3 throttle 15L/hour general digging in sand at 4/5 throttle 19-20L/hour heavy digging at full throttle 23L/hour extreme digging* *Extreme digging means digging out a mix of wet sand and gravel from under of foot of clay and a 1" thick ultra-tough layer of moss from a pond bottom. Machine Specs: John Deere 200LC 6.8L JD Powertech 6068T 140 Rated Net HP, ~155 real max net HP in high power mode Digging done with 1.1 yd 42" toothed bucket that machine came with, but it would have no trouble running a much bigger bucket. Grading done in grading or tamping mode, with engine in economy mode General digging done in digging mode with engine in normal mode Heavy and extreme digging done in digging mode with full throttle and engine in H/P mode. I'm very happy with my Deere's engine too. It fires on the first stroke when starting, never makes a single puff of smoke after the engine starts, and the oil is still transparent light yellow (with a slight grey tint) after 70 hours since my last oil change. Best sounding engine I own too - a nice smooth but assertive industrial sound. P.S. Watglen's volvo machine has 168 net HP according to volvo. Volvo liked to give bigger numbers by quoting gross HP with the B series. So overall, it seems that volvo does have a bit of an advantage over JD machines. Watglen's machine is a tad bigger than mine and burns less fuel.
I do not think there is a big difference in engine efficiency....burning diesel is a pretty perfected in any engine today, in the matter of output HP per gallon fuel....but I do think hydraulic design can make some difference...like load sensing system (which is standard on any full size excavator today) as well as an electronic control system that allows a fine tuning and optimizing of the hydraulics...
You would be surprised about fuel efficiency.
C series . Any comment?
I am not surprised as long the difference is "between the engine and the bucket"....there can be some difference behind the joysticks too... Please tell us about your "fuel efficiency feelings"........:scool
Over here the most common brands are Volvo and Caterpillar on excavators, and I know several contractors which has sold theirs Cat's and started buying Volvo insted. Not only because of the fuelsavings, there are often more reasons behind a brand-change i guess.. like customer support and service. Not long ago i were on a job with one of our C-series Volvos, and another guy was operating a D-series cat, and we soon discovered that he had to have the throttle higher in the cat to get it to run nice. There were some liters/hour in my Volvos advantage. But, if I put the RPM up on the Volvo (hard digging), the liters start flying through the engine too, so .. the difference isn't so big as you migth wish. Maybe a Cat operator want's a fast machine, and can live with a bit higher consumption to get the job done fast, and a Volvo operator want's a smooth excavator that get's the job done a little slower? :beatsme As I said, the difference isn't really that big if you do all types of work. In my own little head, it truly belive a C-series Volvo can save me some money over a D-series Cat, but remember that the Volvo is a newer machine than the Cat. And soon Cat's E-series is newer than the Volvo, how will the numbers end up then? And in 2011-2012 Volvo will release their new modell, and so on .. Ehm.. yeah! And this wast just about CAT and Volvo. What about the other brands? My firm has always had Volvo, except for one Komatsu, and I'm strongly thinking about buying a Cat 329E insted of a Volvo Ec290C, just because it's soo much more then the diesel/hour that counts. The diesel you save with a speccifik brand, can go away on crappy engines or hydralic pumps or whatever insted. I dont really know what the heck I just wrote, but the summary is that I belive you can lower your dieselbill with an Volvo insted of an Cat. But just the diesel, not the whole ownership costs. And I dont know anything about Hitachis, Komatsus, Liebherr and so on .. So, what other brand are you considering except Volvo?
Volvo is engineered in a "high fuel price" market (Sweden and Europe), and demand have always been total economy on these markets. When diesel fuel cost 6$+ per gallon customers and engineers will focus more on fuel consumption.... Fuel consumption is a bigger part of total economy if fuel is 6$ per gallon than 3$ per gallon I think that's why Asian and European might have a little advantage from engineering tradition...... As fuel prises raises, and job market get tighter, fuel efficiency will get more focus in the American engineering too.... I still think we can expect more efficient hydraulics in the future.....fuel saving up to 20-40%.... Read this article about pump controlled hydraulics