How to Operate a Bobcat // Skid Steer Training

everyone welcome to this episode inside the sandbox today we're gonna show you how to operate a skid steer so yes you've seen a lot of our other how-to videos we love the feedback we get thank you guys for giving us the comments this episode we don't have skid steers off out at our site very often so we do have this out here for a special event so we thought we'd do a how-to we we did run skid steers for many many years before but now we don't so we brought the Sooner in for a special event we thought we'd do a great how-to video for you a couple of things first we've already done the the pre inspection on the equipment I think that's really key is to check out your equipment the pre-op inspection is key we also are in a controlled environment here so we're gonna be doing some scoops showing you some things but we're in a very controlled way [Music] today we're running a bobcat 550 skits to your track machine so they rough they're about 7,000 pounds I will tell you this from experience skid steers are actually probably one of the most dangerous pieces of machinery which is a little bit scary because it's kind of easy as you can see we rented this one a lot of people can rent them it's deceiving because people think because they're smaller they're safer I would actually argue the opposite the larger the machine it is a lot tougher to get you know when flip one of those things over or do whatever they're just a bigger base on them so when we have like our big excavators and dozers out on our site here those are a lot more stable these little skid steers are really easy if you don't know what you're doing to get in a lot of trouble that's what I want to do a quick how-to video I'm not gonna go into a lot of details about this machine other than the question I get the most is the difference between you'll see this machine is a tracked machine versus a wheeled machine so if you see the two different systems that we have on skid steers and really it comes down to two different pieces typically these track systems are good for a softer environment like our sand or a landscape run on grass is gonna use these because they kind of float above the surface a wheeled machine you're putting 7,000 pounds in for points and they're gonna dig into the ground so they're better for harder surfaces like asphalt parking lot whatnot now so most people ask well then why wouldn't you just get the skid with the track machine the difference comes down to cost this undercarriage alone they're much more expensive there's a lot more moving parts these tracks the treads to replace there's a lot more expensive versus a single tire is very easy to replace on a wheeled machine so if you don't need it you're working on hard surfaces or anything like that that's typically what you want to use a wheeled machine not a tracked machine so that's just a high-level on that again we're gonna go over this track machine the controls are all the same so let's go ahead and get in the machine okay so I'm gonna open these now skid steers again from a safety perspective they're actually kind of challenging to get in and out there are some newer machines that now have side entry with a single arm which are pretty cool and the reason is there's a lot to step on here and ways to get your foot wedged in something so just be really careful always three points of contact when you're getting in and out of these machines first thing seatbelt again you kind of see their smaller cabs you kind of wear a skid steer and then these most skid steers again had this big arm for the top of you down right there now Bobcat there's a key there and I just wait there's usually an indicator up on the left when you're good to start we are good there and we're running now skid steer like this again cat John Deere Bobcat a lot of them there's different control types this one is probably the simplest structure and this is where they all you're driving is on your left all of your boom and bucket control is on your right hand those are the simplest there's several different configurations they can run but that's the easiest and it also it's very similar to a wheel loader to an excavator things like that so now again I got seat belt on this big thing none of this the machine won't move at all with this big safety arm when it's up above your head so it's a key there is this will normally be above you have to pull it down in order for anything to work outside of that with bobcat here there's also a parking brake switch up here on my left right there and then there's a way to turn on the hydraulics because I see a little lockout symbol so this one just there's a button up here and I see I'm green I'm good to go everything's live right now so now with this one there's a couple different ways to control your throttle and again this is very common with almost any skid steer there is a on this one there's a throttle knob over and you're right they go up like that generally most operators actually use the one foot pedal that's in it's a manual throttle so you'll see I set my right foot on there so usually most operators want to use their foot pedal just because it saves fuels and you're not running at a higher rpm all the time so usually I'm gonna use my right foot here when I need to go faster or not again it's it's more increasing the power to the engine which doesn't necessarily translate to speed although it will usually make things go faster but that's all gonna be controlled to my my joysticks but it does give you more power so when you're trying to lift material whatever you're have loaded there you're gonna want to use your foot pedal to give you some more power now everything is live right now again if I start with my right hand right hands boom and bucket so if I pull back raises my boom up right hand forward brings the boom down then if I go right hand I'm gonna bring it back up right hand to the right opens the bucket right hand to the left closes the bucket and then bring it back down now I call this driving position which is really important obviously you know you don't want to be necessarily all the way down to the ground usually the bottom will actually drag a little bit so you want to be a little bit above the ground here but you also don't want to be any higher you know get some people to driving up higher and there's a couple of reasons first of all you'll notice I can't see so it's really tough to see where you're going the other thing is we're going to show you this though the way you get in trouble in the skid steer it's really with the center of gravity the higher you have that tool in the front the more likely are you can tip the machine so generally you want to be low and tight to the ground so right about here now that's my right hand okay there are accessory hydraulics on here for switches you know the great thing about this gets there like a Swiss Army knife you know you can swap it up with different tools on there these you would have buttons on there to control that left is driving again this is a simple driving mechanism you push forward goes forward pull back goes backwards and then left and right however hard you go left or right that's how the machine is going to turn so it's very very simple like that okay other than that again you'll see there are control settings up on the Bob here we can change the configuration of how those controls again we're running ISO controls right now I also call cat controls but there's other things like that you've got all the fuel when all your gauges are usually up in the corner of one of the machines sometimes there's a backup camera sometimes there's a rearview mirror things like that and then down low again we're in a climate-controlled cap which this one all the climate controls down low there so let's go up here I'm going to show you real quick so now I'm just with my left hand going forward a little bit and again I give it my foot pedal give it a little bit of gas a little faster or slower now when you come up here the key you know right now my bucket is curled up you know that's obviously not gonna if I drive straight in I am NOT gonna really get anything so this is no different than a wheel loader you get to open that bucket up so you kind of flying it out so it's flat to ground then you drive forward and I give it a little bit of gas now this is similar to a wheel loader we can be pulling up a little bit while curling that bucket you're just trying to get a really full bucket it fully scoop in there so now once I have it I'm gonna back up the key is don't keep pulling up on this now with this machine there is no auto level on this one and what I mean by that cement when you pull back in your right hand you'll actually have the bucket wheel uncurl a little bit to keep it level this one does not and what that means is some material is going to come right over the back right over your cab which is not great if you're a new operator to do that at job site I'll show you that in a sec but again low and tight so I'm down below me now I back up bring it over a little bit [Music] and then to dump it where it's gonna pull right hand back now again without that Auto level you need to be I'm going to the right a little bit to open that bucket up as I'm going up now you really just need enough room to dump and have enough room to open the bucket so you're talking maybe four or five feet and then I'm driving forward here slowly right there and then I'm just going right hand to the right and this will dump my bucket I can also be pulling back at the same time to dump it all the way there's a full scoop and then at the end you curl it all the way back up I'm breaking it down a little bit and then my left I'm just pulling back Kanna can be tougher visibility and a skid steer can be a little bit more difficult just because you got the arms on both sides so this is where again a rear view camera is helpful or the mirror but just make sure you know where you're going with that machine so I'll do another one here same thing lightening a little better this is where if I see I'm getting more power you can see how my hydraulics have more power right there now I'm just gonna keep this one here really the only time you're gonna get in trouble in a skid steer it's again when that bucket is up above you this is the biggest mistake I see so right now I am fully loaded so you see I raise it up here the machine you see us um spilling over the back there this is where your very unstable so this is where new operators get in a lot of trouble it is really not that difficult to flip a skid steer and if you haven't done it if you're a new hopper it will scare you it's again if your seatbelt in it is there's a way you can write yourself there but obviously you don't want to get in that situation period so this is your most critical time when you're up like this that you're very top-heavy so you should only be inching forward slowly and then you can dump and then I'm bringing it back down drive around I'm not gonna go a ton into grading with these again I really just want to go over very basic controls here but the skips here again you just basically you can see your blade and you're generally trying to keep it flat and then you're just driving along the ground there you just wanna you try to want to avoid letting it dig all the way in [Music] kind of similar to a bulldozer you do want to have some material in front of your blade generally now what happens here if you go too deep you'll see what happens I can just dig it straight in and you're gonna create a big pothole right there so that's why you're really got to be careful now if you are trying to lay material down gravel whatnot sometimes the best way raise this up so you can actually see underneath it gonna be cautious when you're top-heavy but this is where I'm getting it right up in front of me and you can see this is where almost shaking I do this kind of shaking with the hand open and close you can lay a row of material I'm not doing it great here didn't have a trying to avoid doing a full clump but you can see and while you're trying to watch going backwards but generally you can drop gravel if you have a nice even bucket there you can spread it that way again not the best up and then the final thing is floating the blade this material now these machines you can backtrack a couple different ways again if I get that bucket all the way I can see the edge of that and I can just pull back on it you obviously want to be careful you don't ever pull that bucket all the way in you don't want to be too close so it's basically kind of straight at a little bit of an angle just so you can see the corner just like that I come back to it now floating the blade really two different ways so again almost similar to the wheel loader even a dozer you can usually disengage the hydraulics turn you can disengage so there's a way to disengage the hydraulics here it's called flow so you set it down flat and on the Bobcat there's a little button here a yellow button on my right joystick I hold that in and kind of jam the joystick forward and now I've disengaged hydraulics so I know you do and sometimes I have a bucket open a little bit I can back straight up in the blade itself and the boom is floating there's no a power that so you see how I get a nice smooth surface there and then at the end I just pull it out a float by pulling back just a little bit keep backing up right there so that's one way the other way if you've dealing with a really rough surface the other way you can float the blade is with the blade angled down so same strategy I'm gonna put it down the ground flat same thing hold that right yellow button go like this and I can actually roll the blade up again I'm just trying to be able to see behind it you do not want to keep rolling that in you never want to be over a 45 degree angle but now I back same strategy here I can actually see behind I'm getting a little bit of dirt behind the bucket this is good if it's really rough and you're really to fill in some holes [Music] and then at the end here I'm just pulling it out of float again but again you don't I don't just want to pick it out so if I do I'm gonna leave a big pile of dirt so I'm gonna slowly it's how to float now let me keep dragging it out and slowly get rid of that material that's there there you go again two different strategies for how you can float that blade and use the back of them so so we're gonna go ahead and park it here a couple of things and I speak from experience here where you don't want to look like an idiot make sure your buckets all the way around again with these front most skid steers nowadays are you access it from the front door what I see often they'll drive up and see if I go a little bit further here you'll see I actually am hitting hitting the hydraulics so you actually need to make sure you're all the way down it's a pretty common mistake that I see rookies make so you're all the way down usually you flatten that bucket out so you're not stepping into something that's pitch like that then we're gonna go ahead lock out the hydraulics put parking brake on and then we're good to go this goes up first turn that on really important for three points of contact getting out hopefully you guys enjoy that again by no means are we experts this is kind of what we've learned out here we teach customers how to use these things we'd love to hear your comments let us know any tips and tricks there's probably a lot of very proficient operators out there let us know how you learned how to use a skid steer again thanks for tuning in we'll see you in the next episode [Music] you

Channel: Heavy Metal Learning

Views: 556,255

Rating: 4.8608465 out of 5

Keywords: Skid Steer, Skidsteer, skid steer loader, skid loader, how to operate a skid steer, attachments, T550, Bobcat, Bobcat T550, landscape, how to 101, heavy machinery, tutorial, training, skid steer attachments, skid steer grading, skid loader attachments, construction, construction equipment, heavy equipment operator training, how to videos, how to operate a bobcat, how to run a skid steer, skid steer training, heavy equipment operator, heavy equipment training, equipment operator

Id: 6crRApG1RAo

Length: 16min 31sec (991 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 27 2018