boom that allowed a loaded bucket to be slewed through 360° virtually within their own track width.
Whilst ultra swing excavators can prove invaluable for work in really confined spaces, their premium price has worked against high volume acceptance in the UK hire market. Amongst the small number of companies currently offering ultra swing models here is Takeuchi, which first introduced its innovative FR series in Europe as prototypes during 1998. By contrast, zero tail swing minis have gained good acceptance here. This design concept, in which there is little, or no, rear overhang beyond the outside of the tracks when the machine slews around, has become the norm for many compact excavators weighing 2.0 tonnes or over. Ammann Yanmar was a pioneer of the zero tail swing mini with its ViO machines first being sold here in 1998.
Self-propelled tracked 360° excavators
JCB re-entered the mini market in 1989 with its 1.38 tonne 801. Designed and produced from the ‘ground up’ by JCB, the machine laid the foundations for this famous British plant maker to become a big supplier of small excavators. Minis designed by the Japanese maker Kobelco were made by Fermec in Manchester for a time from 1996 to 2000. The machines were initially sold as Kobelco and Fermec models and later also as Case (after Case bought Fermec in 1996).
This Hanix S&BX1 was both a high discharge tracked dumper and an ultra swing mini.
complete with dozer blades also moved down in size to create a new generation of micro. The first of these ‘scaled down minis’ to appear in the UK were the 700kg Chieftain 7FX, 750kg Nissan N08 and 920kg Yanmar YB101-2 – all launched at SED’87. As more such fully powered micros appeared, so demand declined for the original ‘walk-around’ designs - even though some had gained driven wheels.
1987 also saw the appearance here of the first Hitachi UE series mini excavators which resulted from the purchase of Hokuetsu (the manufacturer of the Airman mini). Bobcat added its first mini excavators at this time with machines produced for Europe by Pel-Job in France. Later Bobcat developed and made its own minis. Having first made mini excavators in 1982, the Austrian maker Neuson originally teamed up with compressor manufacturer CompAir to introduce machines in the UK. SED’88 saw the arrival of three CompAir badged minis including the 2.0 tonne RD2700 that had an angling undercarriage (to aid work on slopes). This innovative feature (now known as the VDS system) is available on some Neuson mini excavators from Wacker Neuson today.
In 1989 the name on Nissan compact excavators changed to Hanix and the following year dealer Brown & Tawse test marketed the fascinating Hanix S&BX1. This novel design combined a small ultra swing excavator superstructure with a 1.0 tonne payload high discharge dumper skip on the same crawler undercarriage. It did not catch on.
Caterpillar introduced its first mini excavators in 1998 with the 1.7 tonne 301.5 and 2.7 tonne 302.5 produced at its Desford, Leicester factory in the UK. Now the company is turning to Wacker Neuson for the supply of its smallest excavators. Terex gained mini excavator expertise by buying the German maker Schaeff in 2001. The following year saw Imer in Italy create a joint company with IHI and the
South Korean company Doosan Infracore considerably reinforced its compact excavator portfolio with the purchase of Bobcat in 2007. Hyundai is another notable mini maker from South Korea. Many more makers have made minis over the last 40 years as these machines have become an indispensable part of the construction plant and non-operated plant hire scene. During the 1980s and early 1990s, mini sized backhoe loaders such as the Kubota RW25 and Thwaites Alldig carved out a significant niche in the UK hire market, but today it is compact excavators that dominate although JCB is breathing new life into its 2700kg 1CX compact skid steer backhoe loader which it first introduced in 1994. The increasing popularity of micro and mini excavators in the last four decades has also led to the development of matched wheeled and tracked compact dumpers. Narrow width machines with high tip ability (able to discharge into builder’s skips) have proved to be good additions to many hire fleets.
The Thwaites Alldig was one of the mini backhoe loaders in hire fleets during the 80s and early 90s.
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Landmark small high tip wheeled dumper launches over the last 40 years have included the 500kg payload Roughneck Skiploader in 1987 (also later marketed as the Chieftain SL52 by Blackwood Hodge), the rear wheel steer 1000kg payload Ausa 108DA (in 1990) and the articulated 750kg payload Samurai from Keetona (in 1991). The latest small Wacker Neuson high tip dumpers are directly descended from the Samurai and this UK design influenced the subsequent development of this type of machine by other leading dumper makers.
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