Basic safety tips include wearing the correct protective gear, fastening your seatbelt, surveying the site before operating, maintaining three points of contact when exiting and entering the machine and using the safety interlock and your cameras once operating.
In this article, we want to highlight a particular safety tip… did you know that proper blade positioning is essential to operating your mini excavator as safely as possible?
With a mini excavator of more than eight tonnes, you’ll generally want to keep the blade in front. However, with smaller mini excavators, particularly those weighing less than three-tonne, positioning the blade in the back can provide much-needed stability and balance.
With smaller excavators, if you try to dig with the blade positioned in the front, the cab may tip backward as the bucket digs into the soil. In this case, it’s best to move the blade to the back of the mini excavator. It can grip the earth to provide stability and prevent the cab from tipping as you dig.
This is clearly demonstrated in the below video from 2015, featuring an older Cat machine and as explained by Caterpillar Engineer Greg Worley.
