Ha ... Not Compact, Dry, Skate-Park Smooth surface like pictured
More like a Ploughed Field .. Rutty .. Really Test a truck out ... Should have sent one up to see Brian .. :drinkup
Yep Mass X all left hand traffic down here, i like it that way with clockwise traffic out of the pit as it puts the loaded truck against the wall and not out on the edge to the next bench below.From the mines I’ve been in here in the U.S., the majority do run left-hand traffic. Most of the bigger scraper contractors run their scraper projects left-hand as well.
From my understanding, Bingham Canyon runs right-hand traffic because of the high amount of contractors and vendors that they have to share their haul roads with. At any given time there are two dozen or more contractor vehicles somewhere in the pit, a number of which are delivery truck drivers. In the picture I posted earlier, you can see two Komatsu or Cummin’s technician vehicles behind the 960E at the back of the line.
With some mines, the thought is that when sharing your haul roads with a very high number of outside vendors, changing to left-hand traffic will result in more accidents than it will prevent. Delivery truck drivers are usually the biggest accident concern when changing traffic patterns to something different than what some supertrucker is accustomed to on a highway.
Does every mine in Australia run left-hand traffic?
Yep Mass X all left hand traffic down here, i like it that way with clockwise traffic out of the pit as it puts the loaded truck against the wall and not out on the edge to the next bench below.
Don't hold your breath on this one. It is already common knowledge Cat is working on an A/C truck, but 500 tons is a stretch.
Tires have always been a limiting factor for any truck. The largest mine trucks (without payload indicators) that are spot checked for weight consistently weigh in with 400-440 ton loads, despite truck ratings of 350-380. The reason the trucks are rated lower? Tires. Tire manufacturers do not want to invest in the research and infrastructure to make tires capable of greater loads, due to the risk involved with periods of downtime in the truck industry (that's a lot of money sitting there not making tires).
The point? Larger trucks today are capable or nearly capable of handling 400+ tons. Tires are not. I do not believe the market will see a truck, electrical or mechanical, RATED for 500 tons until heavy equipment manufacturers pony up and subsidize the tire technology.
Actually, I meant to add that the problem with the tires has to do with size. They can make bigger tires, but they have no way to transporting them to the site. They'd be huge.
I'm told no Siemens 860 inverters have gone to the U.S. or Canadian markets so I'm not sure where the 'problem' prototype unit was seen. I'm told one 960 went to Canada. That might be the one that had a pump leak, but rather than fixing it, the customer decided to let it keep on leaking. They added water instead of antifreeze so it froze up literally. You can't always go by half the story. The pumps have all been upgraded to stainless steel models.
Actually, they can definitely transport larger tires. The issue is not that they cannot transport them, it's that once you break a certain size, there is added cost in transporting them due to different routes being needed, more permitting, and so on.
You might want to reread the post with the comment about the "problem prototype". It says right in the post that it was a 960 that was the issue, not an 860. The issues with the drive system were the typical Siemens issues of constant inverter faults, as well as blowing all of the drive motors that were built for the truck in a matter of two months. This was in the summer time, and there was no freezing issue. So you're right, you can't always go by half the story.
Regarding the 795F’s, I’ve actually been lucky in that I’ve seen all the field follow units at the three U.S. operating sites.
Barrick Goldstrike has a strict enough “No Camera” policy I was unable to get any photos of the 795F’s there. But I have a couple decent pictures of the trucks at Bingham Canyon and Black Thunder.
The pictures from Bingham Canyon show 795F’s on haul roads; and yes, they are very fast trucks. They'll outpace the Komatsu 960E and 930E ES's on a grade.
The Black Thunder photo is backing onto a pitfill dump. I was never very close to where they had the 795F's operating, hence the distant picture. But it's the center truck in the photo.
alco: How many 960Es do they have? Any idea how they're working out?
alco: Do you know if they still have any 797s running around down there?
CAT793: How does the economics work on such a huge Hole and 240T???
Where do your "D" Trucks fall down?
Gavin84w: So let me see if i got this right, they have a dedicated crushing crew that manufacture material on site to sheet the roads?
I stand corrected. They would’ve been 240 tonners with Trinity bodies than because their profile made them stand out and look identical to the Tinaja/Bingham Canyon units.activeorpassive: Bingham Canyon has the only truck in the field