-Hey, everyone.
This video is going to be basic, beginner level,
how to operate a backhoe. Now, this video is
brought to you by Ariat. They reached out
and they're sponsoring this content. Without them, we wouldn't be able
to provide you this video and these series of videos. We'll link to some
of their product below. With that said,
let's go ahead and get right into it. [music] [music] [music] Basic controls on a backhoe
that we're going to go over here. First thing as I say,
I'm not an expert on these. I'm going to show you
what I've learned. I just want to go over the controls. I would say safety,
obviously, number one. We've already done
the pre-op inspection. Three points of contact
getting in or out of equipment. First thing, seatbelt. Put that on, you'll hear that
in every one of my videos. Don't listen to the operators say
don't wear your seatbelt. You're in a protection system. You got to be secured to it. You don't want to throw yourself
out of these things if you were to roll it. After that,
we're going to start this thing. Now, we're in a John Deere 310SL. Big shout out to RDO Equipment. They actually provide us
the backhoe for these videos. Now when we're in it, first thing we're going to do
and I'm going to-- We have a handheld camera. We're trying a little bit
something different here. We've had a lot of people say they want to see
some of the controls. If you can't see them there,
I'm going to hold a camera here and try to show you some. On these, one-click turns them on their key list
for the John Deere's. Then I hold that to start it. [beeping] Now, what I'll say, we're going
to go over this John Deere 310. Backhoes are relatively similar. Whether or not we go over
this one or another one, they're going to be pretty similar. We'll go over these controls. Now, first thing you always notice and again on this display is very
similar to crossover from skids. John Deere keeps it
pretty consistent, which is what I really like
between their different pieces. We have the parking brake
right there. It's going to always start as on. If we did want to stop it
right there, but ultimately I'm looking, I got
the parking brake symbol right there. That means this machine will
not go anywhere with that on. That's obviously
always really important. Now, when you come into this thing, first thing, this is a steering wheel that
you're going to go up and down with and then if I need to adjust my seat. Usually,
you're going to curl those down. You have a little better-- it's right there in front of you. Now with these backhoes, again, I don't think
they're really good at any one thing. They're used for a lot
of different purposes, but they're not. Some people use them in a lot of
different areas of different markets, but they're not real popular
in the Midwest, but they really are a combination
of a frontend loader or an excavator. I think they don't do
either one really well, but the fact that one machine
does both, it can be handy. You should know how to operate them. With that said, I'm going to go over
some of the basic just controls here and I'll use my handheld camera
to show you some of these things. On the control panel,
we already went over everything there at least for the starting. Other stuff you're not
necessarily going to need here, there's a disconnect
if there's a quick attach on then. Your hazard lights, your Eco;
is a Eco Mode has on lighting. Auxiliary hydraulics
if you were to have it on there. This changes your control pattern
whether you're running ISO or SAE or backhoe controls. I always keep ISO. People love CAT controls
recommend those. Unlock our auxiliary hydraulics. Some of these, this
is our ride control. If you turn that on,
it'll make your smoother ride. Some of these aren't actives. This one doesn't have an auto. This will be
an automatic transmission, but it's not on there, that way. Then you got your menu. Below that,
this is your four-wheel drive. It's a mechanical
that turns on the front and then you've got wipers
and air conditioning controls there. That's all of there. Then outside on the steering, we're going to go over
our right joystick in a sec and to boom and bucket controls. On the steering,
you've got lights here, turn signals, and then your shifter is over here. You got forward, neutral, reverse, and then these are your
speed settings on there. Outside of that,
you got your foot pedals. Two brakes that are basically these. You can flip that little lever up and you can do
either a right or a left. The cool thing about backhoes, a lot of times
I'll use it for snow plowing. If you do that, you can disconnect. If you want to help turn,
you just push down the left brake, it would turn
that machine to the left. I can help
but very rarely do I see that use. Then we got our throttle right there
on that side. I'm not going to go over that.
I'll go over the back controls, the backhoe
when we spin the seat around. We're just going to
go over the front for right now. Now, with that said, our boom and bucket controls. If I pull back on this, it's going to raise the bucket up. Again, very similar. These are
going to be similar to a skid steer, a frontend loader, any piece like that. Up right there, right-hand right, opens the bucket. Right hand left, closes the bucket. Then right hand forward
is going to bring it back down. That's the front. Then my shifter, I like to use just
either one foot or the other. It depends.
Some people do the two feet on it. It really is personal preference. There's no right or wrong on that. Then all we would do, we're going
to take the parking brake off. What we're going to do is we're going
to start by just doing the front. We're going to drive over
to an area we just take a few scoops and show you those controls. Then we're going to spin around
and show you the backhoe portion. Parking brake off, shifter. While I'm driving over, you've
probably heard in the beginning and I said this is
brought to by Ariat. We're relatively new
to sponsored content. As a small channel growing, we can't provide-- All this
has been provided by ourselves. It takes a lot of time,
expense for us to do these videos. Ariat reached out. What I love about them, they didn't want to just get
to a marketing video. We pitched them, "Hey,
we'd really like to provide the value with a training video." They've sent us some product. You'll see I got Ariat boots on,
the hat. They've got amazing product, but more importantly, they were
more about supporting the workforce. They have Ariat boots, work boots, they have a whole line of--
I know for cowboy boots, but I didn't realize how much they do
in the side of basically work attire, things like that,
so go check them out. Now, when I was driving there,
if you saw as into-- I can flip that speed
one way or the other. I can basically-- whatever speed you're in, it's going to automatically start at
that lowest speed and work its way. You generally see
those have the "D" there, that'll flip through
automatically on there. If you're going
to scoop things like that, usually I'm in "2"
is a good indicator there. Now, I am going to find a spot
to scoop over here. Now, just to use the front here. I'm not going to go.
We're in a very large gravel pile. Just looking at it,
we've had been on this pile before, but you generally want
to be careful how tall this. This thing's well above my machine. I'm going to grab some here
at the beginning, but you want to be careful. Any of that stuff, that whole wall
can collapse onto the machine. You definitely don't want that. With this, I'm just going
to grab some material right here at the base of it. If I go in forward here, generally you're just going
to lower that all the way down and get your bucket flat. Now the only way you can really tell
and the same as our wheeler, I'll show on the camera. If you can see that top line, that matches the bucket angle
and the bottom, the blade angle. I can't obviously go in like that, but I also
if I have it down too much, I'm actually creating
a downward slope. You can't see the front. It's really important that you're making sure
you're flat to the ground like that. Then all you're doing
is you're driving into it. Now, this is where
to get a really full scoop. You're driving in. If you start pulling back
in the boom while you're driving in, what you're doing is you're putting
downward pressure on the front axle. That's going to give you more
power to drive into that. That's why you want to be
pulling both at the same time. It's an up and in,
up and in, up and in. I'm trying to do both
to get a really full bucket. There we go and I'm backing up. Watching where you're going. I think it's super aggressive
on this one, just because of that large pile
in front of me. I really don't want to be
manipulating that pile too much. Then after that, if I want to dump, let's say same spot, raising it up, you'll see these things have
that auto-level function what you've seen on other machines
that'll curl it over from you, which is good
because you don't want to-- These won't actually let you
curl it over but raise it up. Once I'm at the base,
my tires are at the base, that's where I'm going to be dumping. A lot of times you can shake
that bucket a little bit and make sure you
clear everything out. Watch where you're reversing. Again, you've got mirrors
on this up above you. I'll bring it down,
do it one more time. The key again is trying
to be flat to the ground when you're going into that. As I'm driving, you're trying to also
avoid spinning your tires at all. Then backing up with it. Now, when you're
traveling with these, always being low
and tight to the ground. You never want to have
this up very high. The higher, your backhoes
are extremely top-heavy. If I'm driving around anything above your hood, this machine is a lot less stable. This is where it is a lot easier to get in
a lot of trouble with a backhoe when you're up high like that. Generally, you want to be low
and tight to the ground. Try not to dump all your material
when I'm coming back down. I dump that. Then a final piece, actually with me
actually dumping some of that, I can drop this down. These have a blade that floats just like you've seen
in the other equipment. Generally, you can either be flat or have the blade at an angle.
I'm going to go at an angle here. If I set it down there
and if I take this right joystick and just push it all the forward
and locks forward, and then I'm going in reverse and you'll see I can see behind
and I'll use the camera here because it's tough
to see off the side. I can see basically right
behind the blade there. It'll float the blade.
I'll go right through that. Then at the end of that, just instead of just pulling
straight back on that right hand, I'm slowly raising it so I don't leave a big pile of dirt. Then there we go and curl it back in. We're going to go
back over to our side so I can show you
the back of the machine. Again, I can shift
on the fly on these. Some will have a transmission
an older backhoe will. These all are shift on the fly
so I can flip it to "3" right there and it'll go faster, pretty obvious. First thing, we put in neutral. I'm going to set that
bucket flat on the ground. Now, generally, I recommend flat
or just barely touching it. When I spin around, I'm actually
going to raise up the back and it's going to put
a little downward pressure. The other option,
if you're in a really soft area, you got concerned about being pulled and some people will
just do this anyways. I don't think it's right or wrong,
but some people will actually drive in, spin that open,
and do it like that because it actually puts the blade
into the ground. Again, I don't generally will do that unless I'm afraid
I'm going to get pulled, but usually just flat is fine. Set it down flat like that. I'm in neutral. I generally recommend
putting the parking brake on. We'll go over some in the next video. We'll talk about,
if you leave it in neutral, it can push your machine, but I'm going to put it
in park right now, and then I'm good to go. Then flipping that steering wheel
out of the way and then there is
a little lever right here. That's how I'm going to flip around.
I'm going to flip this around and we're going
to move our cameras around so we can see
the back of the machine. Now, spinning around. Backhoe controls on the back. Basically, it's an excavator arm. If you know how to run-- Again, we're going to do
standard ISO controls. I'll go over that in a moment. Typically, these are pilot controls meaning they'll pull back to me. A lot of the newer machines
will have that. Some will have levers in the front that are still old school
backhoe controls. I shouldn't say old school because a lot of people
are using that. The newer machines will have this
because it also chooses patterns. What you'll do,
is you pull these back to you. Once I pull those back,
I can't activate them any other way. There's a switch then and I'm going to show you right here on the John Deere
that's an unlock switch. Now, before you do that, we're going to drop our jerk. You'll see, there's basically two right there. If I push these forward, you can bring them both down
at the same time. You're basically going until you feel
a little bit of downward pressure. Then you're just trying to. Getting the wheels off the ground
just a hair is good or fine. Some people keep
the wheels on the ground. Really up to you. What you don't want to do is keep-- I don't want to keep
jacking this thing up. The higher I go,
the higher my center of gravity. You just want to be
firm on the ground, but you don't want to be
all the way as high as you can go. That also will push my front end
in the ground a little bit there. Now, after that, again, I've got
my to unlock my controls there. I click that
and I can actually see once I do that on my control that I've got my joystick activated and then I've got my
manual throttle here. Usually, you're going to want
to ramp up your throttle a little bit when you're doing that. Then you've got your
boom lock on these. Whenever you're traveling,
you want these boom locked. With that,
this lever in the center here is our boom lock lever right there. You'll see, I got to pull back in my right hand
or right pull pressure and you'll see that
little thing pop up there. I'll do that. Now outside of that,
now I'm unlocked. Now with this, the controls,
right is your boom and bucket. Left is your stick stick and swing. Now I'm going to extend this away
from me first. This is your stick
or dipper, some people call it. In and out like that. I'm in an ISO standard
excavator controls and then left and right is my swing. One way or the other like that. Then my right joystick
is boom and bucket. If I go forward,
I'm going to bring the boom down, pull back, bring the boom up. No different than a standard
excavator ISO controls. Right is open the bucket, left is close the bucket. Standard controls there. They call an extender hoe. Basically makes that stick longer. With that, I'm going to show you
this foot pedal down here. Right there is how
I'm going to extend that. If I push that forward, stand out, push back on that. Oh, hey, cool Ariat boots right there. Didn't even mean to get that in.
There you go. I got some cool boots from them. I love their-- Actually,
their work boots are amazing. That's the controls there.
Now to dig a hole, I am just going to extend out. Generally, I'm going to extend
that thing as far as it'll go. I'm going to reach out. I look at that extender hoe as
really being used more for transport because I can dig all the way
almost right up to me. You might as well go
with your max reach. Now, here's the biggest
challenge of the backhoe. If you're trenching,
you generally want to do it in line because you're going to try
and push your machine forward. You'll see, it's really difficult
to see my bucket unless I go left or right
to see that thing. All I'm doing is going down
and then you're going to shaving, slicing off a corner here. This is where I'm pulling in,
curling the bucket. You want to try
and get those teeth horizontal to slice through the ground there. Now, new operators,
I know you've seen me say this. Don't worry about doing
multiple emotions at once. Just get used to the control.
I'm going to raise this up. Usually, you want to go over
2 feet or so from your pile or from your trench to dump and I'm going to open. For a new operator,
if you're just training, sometimes the easiest thing to do, and this is not how you'll do
when you're doing this regularly, go down one hand
and one motion at a time. Right-hand right, right-hand left,
right-hand back. Now again,
I know you're not going to do that mainly because if there's utilities,
you always want to dig in layers. However, if you're brand new to this, I just want you
to learn the controls. I don't want you to get overwhelmed
with doing multiple motions. Then my left dumps it. You'll see again, the proper way
then is all I'm doing. You'll see how these things shake. They're not great at any one thing but I can shave layers off here. I'm just trying to get maybe
6 inches off the ground. Not a beautiful trench. We'll go over trenching
in the next video. Again, showing you the-- Basically,
I have all of them all the way extended with the extender hoe. I can pull it up
to get a little bit closer but also trying to manage
your foot control and doing all that same. It's fairly challenging. That's how to use those controls. Finally, backfilling with a backhoe. Again, if you can scrape up just a little bit
without creating a new hole, drag it over. They don't necessarily
recommend using this. If I go like this
and use the side of this bucket, not great for the machine, it's not designed to go laterally. If you're just talking
about finished grade, sometimes you can just
slide through that and you'll get it back to grade
there, so basic controls there. Now the key here
to finish with this back is retracting it all the way. You have to have that all the way in before you can travel
with this thing. Then you're just pulling this bucket,
curling it all the way, pulling stick all the way in. Unless if you have a quick attach, you might have issues
with curling it all the way in, but not usually. Just be careful
if you know you're too close to that then you might scrape it. Then always storing that thing.
Again, locking it. I'm pulling that up. Before I come all the way,
I'm going to-- You'll see the John Deere there.
I have to go down a little bit, pulling back on that to go up. You'll see that little lever came up and then pulling back on the right,
dropping it in. Once you're dropped in, just go down like that to lock it in. Now, this is travel mode. Straight line.
I highly recommend that. Some people, if you try
and go sideways like this, you're just moving
your center of gravity over. It makes no sense to do it.
It makes you shorter, but it's actually less stable.
Generally, you want to be aligned. This is transport mode.
Then when you're done there, all you're doing is
pulling your jerks gently down, pull them all the way up. I do recommend at the end be careful
if you have dirt on there. Sometimes I've slammed
these things hard. Then there we go. Then from there,
turning throttle down. You can push these away from you. We'll lock them out.
I saw actually the symbol. I'll see the lockout go there
and then I can spin it back around. For this, I'm going to go ahead. We're going to park the machine
and get on out. Everyone, those are basic controls
for a backhoe. Again, I always say this in every one. If you're an operator,
use these all the time, share your tips or tricks
in the comments below. We'd love to hear it.
Finally again, a big shout out and Thanks to Ariat. This video would not have happened
without Ariat. Please, we'll put a link below. That's the way
you can help support us is go check out the sponsor
that helped put this together. Again, thanks a lot.
We'll see you in the next episode. [music] [music] [music]
