How to Operate a Mini-Excavator | Mini Excavator Controls

hey everyone Randy with extreme sandbox today we're gonna show you how to operate our mini excavators so we get a lot of clients out here that we show how to use this equipment every day we thought it'd be cool to put a how-to video for our Komatsu mini excavators we are not expert so I say that up front but we can absolutely show you how to operate them come on along first thing it's always three points of contact when you get in with all equipment door locks open so you'll want to lock that open so you have a solid handle here three-point the contact coming up and all the way in the first thing you always want to do is put your seat belt on now while the machines still shut down the safety lock lever on the mini excavators is basically this big arm that goes all the way down so today again we're showing you our Komatsu PC 35 mini excavator almost any brand has something like this that's gonna block the door and that indicates that the machine is live so it will leave it up like that and then again for the door or lock this machine's can be operated with the door open we generally recommend having them closed there's a little lever right here that basically disengages the lock and the door so I can shut it hey we're in there now first thing we're gonna do we're gonna start it up key on the mini excavator it's right over here one click and all the way high first thing I'm gonna do there is an auto Idol function on this machine but I'm gonna turn it up turn that off just for the video purposes it does shake our camera up here so we're gonna leave this all the way up to start with now just kind of going over the equipment controls again we're gonna leave this lock lever up with that up you'll see the machine is safe nothing's going to operate so it's very important that you don't put that down until you're ready to go with the Komatsu mini excavator again our display here does show us I mean typically be looking if there's any indicator warning lights what the fuel level is anything else that we would need to know would be on that display coming over to get our climate control for these machines right here Keith is there throttle knob was there and then lights if we need them are right here we already put our seat belt on then for seat position there's not a ton of adjustments for a mini excavator obviously they're pretty tight compartments but there is a little bit of sliding the seat if you need it at all generally I mean I'm gonna be you're probably gonna be all the way back with these things so that said we got a controls on these machines we're running in ISO which is the standard same as our bigger machines so right is boom bucket left a stick and swing I'll go over those in a moment here we got our two-track paddles here and then there's some additional pedals on the mini excavators for hydraulic thumbs and swinging of the arm which I'll go over those in a minute so now to get this machine live again um now I'm gonna put the safety lock lever down it locks down now everything is live on this equipment so there we can start one motion at a time on this thing so again right hand on the right joystick if I pull back it's gonna raise my boom up and if I go right hand forward brings the boom down then if I'm gonna go right hand to the right will open the bucket in right hand to the left will close the bucket stop there that's our right joystick our left is our stick and swing so if I push out push the stick out pull back we'll bring the stick back and then we've got the swing so with their left or right if we go left this will actually swing the entire cap we go to the left or go to the right these controls are the same as any other larger excavator so those are really your standards that are gonna operate no matter size of machine so those are the joysticks now some of the other pieces we have on the mini excavator the smaller lineups of excavators have also a I called a blade they called a stabilizer bar there's usually another piece right in front of the tracks there's another lever over to the right here that's what's gonna operate that so it's just pulling it doesn't go side to side it only goes back and forth so if I pull back on it it raises my blade in the front and if I push it down it'll push that plate down I'll show you when we get started digging why this is on there's a couple reasons again you can use it to backfill although they're not the best they don't angle back and forth so it's tough to backfill using this like a dozer blade I think the bigger thing that we really use it's calling a stabilizer bar because your tracks your machines so much more compact you want to have a little bit more of a base so it spreads you out I can even put a little downward pressure it makes my machine a little bit more stable when I'm digging so that's probably the best way you want to use it obviously though it's important to have that retracted before we start driving now with our foot controls then you've got a couple so there's a left and most mini excavators have and you might not be able to see it there's little pedals that can block these if you need it now the left foot pedal is the phone there's a hydraulic thumb on this machine so if I push it up it'll close that thumb if I push on the back of it it opens it and generally you want to keep it retracted when you're not using it so it's out of the way when you're digging so that's that tract paddles we'll go over in a second that's how we're gonna drive it and then the right side is really uh it's like a backhoe on a larger machine this will just swing the arm so the many excavators have two different ways you can swing we already talked about the cab swing that actually swings my seat the entire machine you've also got a feature here where you can just swing the arms so if I go to the right with that it just swings the arm to the right if I go to the left with my foot it'll swing it to the left this is handy for a mini excavator if you're really in a tight configuration you're trying to dig straight like maybe along a foundation or some other areas that are really tight that's an easy way that you can make some adjustments with your arm without having you might not be able to swing your whole cab so that's why they use that again we don't use it much out here to train new operators we have enough free room that we just use the cabs so those are all the basic controls okay now we're gonna get into driving first and foremost we want to make sure that blade is up it's not gonna drive very well with it down so I pull back on this have it a few feet off the ground now mini-excavator similar to the big excavators there's two-track paddles or there's foot controls okay every new operator we always train them with their hands just a lot easier to train them that way on the minis you'll see there's two little pieces again these machines are designed to be compact so I'll show you I get an expert we normally use their feet which is how I'll do it but I'm gonna keep my hands off these just to show you I'm doing everything with just my feet if I push both each one of these controls one of the tracks like which left it push the left one by push on the back it goes backwards so right now I'm gonna push on both of them and roughly driving it right there let's say I want to dig right around here what I'll do now down there I usually recommend taking feet off just so it doesn't cause any confusion before you dig again dropping that stabilizer over that blade put a little bit of downward pressure and now I'm ready today again like any other excavator you generally want to dig ideally straight lined up with your tracks that especially with that stabilizer bar it's where the machine is most stable you've got the largest footprint on the ground there so you're gonna be the best in that position you obviously can dig at any configuration off the sides things like that but your machine just is not going to be quite as stable the other piece is you know this machine as much as it won't hit if I curl this in it will not hit the boom arm or anything but it will absolutely hit your blade you'll see I can actually touch my blade down there I can actually hit my tracks as well so that's why it's really important that you're never too close off the corners you want to keep some distance so to dig a hole I'm going to extend that out again we start all the way out so I've got the stick extended you bring it down towards the ground stopping a few feet this is where you want to make sure your teeth are relatively out a little bit so right above there put it down in the ground once it's in I'm just gonna go right hand to left curl that bucket all the way in raise it up and then I can spin left or right to dump right in there that's fully extended the other way if I raise this up I can bring this stick down and in to dig closer same thing though I want to make that adjustment so my teeth are out a little bit put it in the ground curl that bucket all the way up as I raise that up you'll notice that buckets closer that is that stick it controls your distance now I'm going to push that out and I can swing over dump it right there now again this is we've really boiled this down just to show one movement at a time it's much easier for a new operator to just focus on one joystick one control then as you get better you'll notice an expert will often be I'm pulling in the stick I'm raising the boom I'm curling I am doing multiple three things there that's what an expert is gonna do and even going out I can push bulb stick out I can swing at the same time as you get more proficient you'll get better at practicing this so you have multiple motions and pushing it out again nice and slow and easy so that is how you dig with a mini excavator okay so that was digging now let's just do a little bit of back filling on there it's a backfill really the opposite of digging just making sure your teeth are out a little bit and just curling right through it raising that up swing it over now the machines are much more efficient at scooping so that's where you how you want to do that a lot of people try and use the side and you're gonna find the machine just doesn't have much force there now with that said once you get closed and there wasn't much material here so I can go straight into it but it's kind of just making sure your bucket is flat to the ground you don't want to do it with a curled up so I'm just gonna create a concave it's gonna be like a little canyon there it's not straight you want to have those teeth flat to the ground like that and then just coming through if it gets stuck like that I keep swaying eyes raise my boom a little bit and that'll slide through again for the mini ice skaters with the blade I can also show you how to push it with the blade the other piece here is you can always kind of rake the material out away from you so if I just go right here I push left hand forward you'll see how I'm kind of pushing it down this is also doing multiple motions at the same time always trying to make sure my buckets all the way open so I don't hit that joint and you don't want to dig in the back of this bucket so you'll see right there if I was to go down like this it's not great for a machine I would end up getting a bunch of dirt in there so we want to have that cylinder closed all the way like that and then I'm just using the bottom of the bucket to push material out like that so that's how to backfill now I'm gonna move the machine I'm gonna show you you know two things one how to use the thumb on it but also using that blade okay so I just kind of reposition the Machine a little bit so if I wanted to show really quick how do again you saw me use that I can use the blade in a lot of different capacities here it is a stabilizer but just to show you really quickly you know I can use this like a a little bit like a dozer blade so I'm just gonna have my feet on the pedals there I'm pushing forward and kind of dropping my blade and just trying to push this material into that hole right there back up and I'll try one more I'm gonna hook it in there a little bit and it's not the best because the blade will not actually go left or right it won't adjust but it will in a pinch you can do a combination of that and using the side of your bucket so that's how you use the blade now the final thing I want to show is that thumb so again I always set that stabilizer bar it's not a requirement depends how much your love picking up but it is always safer to have that down now again the thumb is that left joystick or I'm sorry the left foot pedal if I push that forward and that way now I should show you I'm gonna open my bucket first the thumb will not go all the way so you see that's as far as it goes so to go any further I have to actually bring that bucket in to really pinch it in there so starting where they were attracted I'm gonna we just used some tires out here easy for training but if I try and just get my bucket in there curl that in so it's nice and tight now I can pull right hand back and I've got that thing pinched in there if I then bring it over here set it down wherever I need it I'll push it out a little bit away and I can either open my thumb to drop this let's see if I just go like that see how that we retracted there and I can go back sometimes I give too I just won there so again as long as I don't touch anything with that bucket it'll stay pinched in there then I can move it to where I want and I can now I can just open the bucket to if I want one second I'm going to open my I want to do the thumb there a little bit there is no kind of get set up there let's try it one more I'll try you know what I've got a bowling ball over here I'm gonna pull it in a little bit off and away from this barricade so again if I get my teeth down by it and now I've got it locked in there so again I can push it away me I'm gonna put it right in the center there open my bucket boom and again it's important to go ahead once you're done with that to open that all the way get a back-end driving position and then if I were to want to drive to Park pull that back up again drive forward here put it there again when I'm parking I like to set that blade back on the ground and then we always like to set our buckets a lot of it down right there's good to park it once you're done it's very important to pull the safety lock lever up again that deactivates everything right there we'll do all that I take my seatbelt off I will then throttle it down and Shh it shut that down again door latch right there make sure it's all the way open three points of contact if possible come out in backwards step there step there all the way there that's our Komatsu mini excavator hopefully you enjoyed watching that if you have any questions or comments please put them below if you're an expert if you're an operator have any other tips or tricks please post it below thanks a lot you guys for tuning in we'll see on the next episode [Music]

Channel: Heavy Metal Learning

Views: 1,079,157

Rating: 4.8190742 out of 5

Keywords: Komatsu, heavy equipment, heavy equipment training, Komatsu PC35, landscape work, PC35, mini-excavator, how to operate a mini-excavator, how to run a mini excavator, how to drive a mini excavator, komatsu mini excavator, mini excavator training, cat mini excavator, kubota mini excavator, bobcat mini excavator, heavy equipment operator training, heavy equipment operator, equipment operator, mini excavator controls, mini excavator, compact excavator, tutorial, digger, excavator, Kubota

Id: dLoIwRKaj80

Length: 18min 1sec (1081 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 29 2018