Interesting photos

It was an electric vehicle

Bugger for some reason I can’t post pictures

Never mind…

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Hey Wallace since you started this topic I think you can delate-out cancel the whole thing.

DOW pictures, yeah. Become problematic for all of us.
I believe the system is throttling back to preserve memory resources.
Use whatever method you can and de-resolution your pictures to post up down to just kilobytes still works.
I found ability to post us 3-4 pictures at a time here IF all totaled up are under 1 megabyte.
S.U.

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Now its working!

That dear friends is a battery charger 700 amp 1000 volt and something big with wheels and a bucket on front…
Don’t type the names you see in photos or I will have to delete these unauthorized pics.
I don’t want any search engines to pick this up.
This is a very early unit in testing.
I will delete them after a few have a chance to see what it is, then we can start naming names and details

image

Photo unfortunately had to be removed.

This is an image from one of these units on surface, this is one of the very few underground to test. They won’t even tell me much. I don’t know who owns it and I have not been shown any prints.

Here is a promotional photo.
image

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Of course it would be cat doing that. Big name gotta be on top with everyone hating all the new JD products. I’ll ask my dad about it he gets to play with that stuff a bit see if he has heard anything over here about cat bringing them in. Last year he heard of full electric line coming out and the local operator union threw a fit about losing diesels. But supposedly by 2030 in this state it will be the only thing allowed to be bought so who knows

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The company that makes that digger ( notice I am not using names to avoid search engines these photos will have to come down shortly) bought out another company that made a great machine to get into this racket. The one you see is their current in house design not based on the older companies work.

Mechanics hate them Say the builder created a cheap machine …
I have not seen the electric do anything yet to comment on how well it will work but I sure got to meet a lot of people from over yonder side of the boarder that came up here to set it up and test it in it’s natural habitat.

The electric version is based on the diesel right up to the transmission.
Its not an elegant machine or a very good machine, but it is one of the very first…
It charges in 30 minutes.

The first of the new stuff in any any field is always full of troubles. The last of the old is usually the most reliable it has to compete with. Once you get enough momentum though things change fast.

We are witness to one of those moments in history when things change fast…

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It’s isn’t much to beat what is out there now since epa got their grubby little fingers into everything with diesel exhaust fluid, after treatments, egr coolers and Regen. The newer diesels we’re based on old lore of legend, reliability well and beyond a million miles. I have 2020 and 2021 trucks that can’t make it a month without a return trip to the dealer for repairs on the emissions system that set then into limp mode. Pathetic in my eyes what they have done regulating the industry into the ground to please there green investors pocket books. Yet the 2 oldest trucks in the fleet 1989 peterbuilts with mechanical injection have been going strong since new and never missed a beat. Trouble nowadays is finding someone that can drive a u pattern 10 speed. Like clockwork new driver? First day replace clutch brake. 2 months replace clutch. All the new drivers are only cdl certified for automatic transmission which are so defeated it can’t break itself. Unloaded trucks doing 10mph up hill, getting passed by everything. The heavy diesel industry in the US= toilet bowl. Can’t even order propane forklifts right now, can only get electrics. Hard pass says management, it won’t last moving 8,000 lb pallets all day long and we don’t have time to let it charge let alone operators smart enough to play with wall sockets full of angry pixys :joy:

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Way to stir up old gripes Norman. When I was an Ironworker we had diesel powered compressors to feed the air tools. Every compressor had to have an operator and all he had to do was maintain the oil level, start the thing, bleed the water out of the tank a couple times a day and shut it off. Drew full wages to just sit there all day and read magazines. Every crane had to have a oiler. All he did was keep grease in a few moving parts. I think they got a little less than journeyman operators wages but still a good paycheck. Never regretted being out of the union.

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CAT tried in house to build a scoop decades ago and they never really knew what they were doing and the market was small so they never got any good at it.
Elephinstone however made mining equipment and they made great stuff.

CAT bought them learned everything they could, built copies of the older units and now with their own in house designs still prove they have not got the idea. The electric just puts an electric motor where the diesel was. The next one ( if they learn from this… ) will be much better.

CAT does seem to understand the ground is shifting and they have to go electric too. I just wish they would hire some mining people to help them understand mining equipment.

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From the actual press release, which also stated they would be testing on your side of the border.
"The modifications included removing its engine, transmission and torque converter then reconfiguring its engine end frame to accommodate the battery boxes and electric motors. The result is a battery electric powertrain driving a conventional and mechanical drivetrain (drive shafts and axles). "

Basically they gutted they only kept the driveshaft, which makes sense.

It is about emissions but not exactly the same as what you are thinking, but it covers both. From the same press release:
“Our customers are planning for deeper mines with very high ambient rock temperatures where ventilation costs are pivotal to making the mine viable,” said Jay Armburger, Product Manager with responsibility for Underground technology. “One means of reducing ventilation demand is through electrification of the mining equipment.”

Engine and torque converter only.

The rest is still there.
Its very quiet however and its nice to be around…
It does not make those soothing Ahhhhh noises like a Ford but its quiet, cool and smoke free.
And I don’t have to work on it…

I am guessing, it isn’t the same transmission because most electric cars have a single speed transmission. Which makes both the press release and what you said true. :slight_smile:

It is probably easier to work on in some ways, but yet vastly different then what you are used to. Intermittent issues are what will make it hard to work on because those are a PITA to diagnose.

You sit in the cab and you have a conventional layout and gear selector
Ill get some pictures for you next chance.

Its not easy to work on.
The Mechanics Curse the poor placement of pipes hoses for example.
In private CAT mechanics curse the current generation of all their equipment because they are trying to make things lighter and… and cheaper…

Look Dinosaur…
image
Its says Wagner on the frame and Copco on the cab…
Its an abomination just like from those Jurassic park movies

Consolidation in the construction equipment industry means there is really very little competition or incentive to make anything new.
But cheap…
Ya thats something they aim for.

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Now is the time to bitch about it to upper management because it is just a prototype at this point. :stuck_out_tongue:

all I can think right this second, is how to use that big ole bucket as a charcoal retort because the cab is smashed up already. lol

Everything they make is like that not just the electrics.
Everything is made from components sourced from other excavators and such.
On the surface it sounds reasonable to share parts to save cost.
But what if those parts are not the right parts, and what if the designers choosing these parts are not really familiar with the application?
You get second rate.

Solution to second rate is buy out your competition…
Then your top of the line again…

That Wagner Copco Kludge shows us a couple of things.
The Wagner was a good design and lasts and or nothing new has been thought up in a long time so all the parts transfer over.
And that bucket is a throw back to the dark ages.
See how its worn out?
You need a couple of welder to cut it up and repair it.
Thats an OEM bucket used on brand new equipment or maybe its a really old one hard to say.

But a better bucket made by a small company I shall not name is made in 4 pieces and bolted together.
You just replace the worn out parts in an afternoon.

If you big enough you don’t have to be nimble or leading the pack you just need to dominate and control the market

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It is reasonable to share parts and costs =and= have low inventory for spare parts. Most likely they design to hit the average case ie a compromise for what works best in several use cases, rather then to specific use cases. A common one is like truck tires or batteries. You buy a truck drive it off the lot and the first two things you do is drive to the tire place, then to the battery place and have them both replaced with heavy duty. I have seen it with farm equipment as well.

in this particular case, I suspect it is slopped together from the pieces of what they kind of want to use from what is on the shelf, and testing how well the drive train works. It is like what automakers would call a ‘mule car’. You are testing the drive train, and aren’t trying to give the final design away early.

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I bet the operating engineer’s union will love them. It reminds me of some 250T ( or something) end dump trucks that got put in an iron mine in Calif. They required a driver and an observer. TomC

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Those trucks are -huge-, someone had an electric version of those about 15 years ago, but it had onboard diesel generation with the main advantage being the torque. In Chile they put in solar and wind farms for their mining operations. They didn’t have a grid to extend into those regions and hauling in fuel was more expensive. They started converting when oil was super high the last time. They use a hybrid system, so they are still hauling fuel, just not as much.

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Stuff like these.
Its not new.
Its very cost effective where you have electricity and the right people to up keep the trucks.

This is 1010 Kiruna.
I worked on this particular unit when it was new ( and it aint looking good from this 2011 photo, it must be scrapped by now )
Under the cab was two stack of batteries for when it was not on trolley power.
image

These are not elegant looking systems, but they do work.
image

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Very few people are aware of it but there are huge salt mines that Start not far from the river in Detroit and run many miles west. When I was an Ironworker out of Detroit I got a job once repairing the elevator that they used to carry equipment down into the mine. Those big machines were completely disassembled so they would fit on the hoist platform and then reassembled down in the mine. Pretty amazing to see.

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That extends well into Canada.
Part of the reason we all have high blood pressure and our cars desolve up here is our proximity to that giant underground salt deposit

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