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This kind of Bucket Wheel Excavators work in the open brown coal mines near Aachen, Düsseldorf and Cologne in the far west corner of Germany. They are more then 200 metres long and reach a height about 100 metres. They could mine about 300.000 m³ of brown coal every day.
The total weight is about 13.000 t. Such a machine can only be build up in the mine – this takes about 4 to 5 years.
To build this LEGO model it "only" took four long weekends in autumn 2001.
The real crawlers are 3 metres wide and 30 metres long. The whole excavator has 12 of these crawlers.
More then 1000 wide linked treads were used in the LEGO model. All of them are powerded, but the gears are to weak to move the more then 10 kg heavy machine. In 2008 I've rebuild the drive and now 3 Power Functions XL motors do their work and finally the monster crawls over the table.
Two supplemental cranes are needed to provide the maschine with new parts and materials.
Due to the pulley principle the load is split to various cables.
The main boom – seen from the minifigure's perspective.
The turn-table has to hold the whole upper construction and should be possible to turn it. The turn-table was designed by Beat Felber.
The main boom.
The main boom has to hold the bucket wheel and transport the coal away from the bucket wheel.
The cabins on both sides of the main boom can be moved vertically.
Bucket Wheel Excavator in motion – LEGO Bucket Wheel Excavator.
Marinus from the Netherlands has finished his fully functional model at the end of 2013, read more at http://www.technicbrickconstructions.nl
Building instructions and part lists
There are no building instructions und part lists available for the models shown on this web site. There are no engineering drawings available. To build the LEGO models only photographs from the real prototypes were used. All models are unique and not for sale.