If your next construction job requires mini excavators, you should be mindful of bucket size and type of mini excavators. Buying a mini excavator is only the first step in acquiring the tool you need. To avail the benefits of this versatile product, you should select the right bucket type and size for a mini digger.
This ultimate guide will help you in selecting the right attachment for your micro digger.
What Are Different Mini Excavator Bucket Type?
Though there are various specialty bucket types in the market, the five famous mini excavator bucket types are:
- General Purpose Buckets
- Grading Bucket
- Heavy-Duty Bucket
- Trenching Bucket
- Angel Tilt Bucket
These all are different mini excavator bucket types that are suitable for different types of jobs. Let’s discuss them in detail.
What are General Purpose Buckets?
These are also known as digging buckets or standard buckets. They are the most versatile and lightest mini excavator bucket type due to the lack of reinforcement. If you buy a mini digger without specifying any bucket type, this bucket will come along with the mini excavator.
They can lift higher volumes of material in each cycle because of their lightweight. These are some objects and tasks you can take from this mini excavator bucket type:
- Dirt
- Sand
- Clay
- Gravel
- Frost-covered soil
- Silt
- Loam
- Ground with loose stones
This bucket type is mostly used for backfilling soil, loading piles of fine gravel into trucks, and excavating of above-mentioned products.
What are Grading Buckets?
They are also known as ditching buckets. Their main aim is to clean ditches as well as grading and sloping for finishing jobs. They are ideal for tight and sloped conditions as they are more shallow and compact than other mini excavator bucket types.
They stand out for their wide construction, flat-cutting edges, and smooth edges. They are ideal for soft materials and soil.
These buckets can do the following work:
- Ditch Maintenance
- Slope Shaping
- Utility Work
- Landscaping
- Road Construction
- Loading material
- Back-filling
- Moving the material which has liquid in it.
What are Heavy-Duty Buckets?
They are severe-duty buckets that are used for dense and tough work. They are made of abrasion-resistant steel so they have high strength. They are often used in rock quarries for loading trucks with high-density material. They use side cutters on the outside of the bucket to break through heavy material.
These buckets generally come in general, severe, and extreme-duty varieties.
General heavy-duty buckets can handle the following material:
- Stone
- Sharp rock
- Gravel
- Shale
- High-silica sand
- Hard-packed clay
- Blasted rock
- Shot granite
Severe and extreme-duty varieties can also handle the following objects:
- Sandstone
- Broken slag
- Basalt
- Limestone
They are commonly used for the following projects:
- Deep digging in rocky areas
- Breaking through highly dense material
- Moving highly abrasive materials
What are Trenching Buckets?
The Trenching Buckets are for trenching ditches. This bucket has a narrow shape, a flat blade, and an extended front section for better access. It is ideal for high-precision jobs, for example digging around various pipes.
They are commonly used for:
- High-precision projects
- Backfilling in standard-duty soil type
- Digging deep trenches
- General soil digging
What are Angel Tilt Buckets?
They are a type of grading bucket that can tilt 45 degrees right and left. They cover a large area and are useful for creating precise slopes. Mini excavators don’t have to move much when using tilt buckets.
They are used for various purposes:
- Trenching
- Specialized Landscaping needs
- Leveling
- Finishing
- Ditch cleaning
- Clearing snow
- Digging into hard-to-reach areas
- Sloping
- Cleaning trenches and ditches
What are other Speciality Bucket Types?
We have discussed famous mini excavator bucket types designed for special needs. As you have to choose the right size mini excavator for your work, you also have to choose the right mini excavator bucket type.
Except for these five buckets, there are some other special buckets too for different types of jobs.
- Riddle Buckets:
It is also called a skeleton bucket which has holes or slots in the back. This bucket is used to separate coarse stones and soil from fine soil.
- Rock Buckets:
They have sharp teeth to dig deep into the rocky surface. Their design is similar to general-purpose buckets. They have high-strength rippers and side wear plates to dig into rocky surfaces.
- V-Buckets:
It is a trenching bucket that can dig V-shaped trenches. It is used for laying pipes and cables.
- Hard-pan Buckets:
It is similar to rock buckets and can loosen compacted soil. They have extra teeth to further break up tough soil or heavy rock during digging.
- Cemetery Buckets:
They are used to dig a cemetery plot with a flat bottom and straight lines.
This is all about mini excavator bucket types. But, there is also a mini excavator bucket size chart that can help you in deciding which mini excavator bucket you should buy.
Mini Excavator Bucket Size Chart:
In general, mini excavator bucket sizes range from 6 inches to 36 inches, some sizes are only applicable for grading buckets.
You should choose the bucket sizes according to the type and size of your mini excavator.
This is the size chart that you should follow before choosing the bucket type for your Chinese digger:
- Up to 0.75 ton Mini Excavator:
The bucket width of such a mini excavator should be 6 inches to 24 inches. If it is a grading bucket, the size should be 30 inches.
- 1-ton to 1.9-ton mini digger:
Mini Excavator bucket size should be 6 to 24 inches, and grading bucket size should be between 36-39 inches.
- 2-ton to 3.5-ton micro excavator:
The bucket size should be 9-30 inches for a 2-ton mini excavator. And the grading bucket size should be 48 inches.
- 5-ton to 6-ton midi excavator:
The standard bucket size of these excavators should be 12-36 inches. And the grading bucket width should be 60 inches.
- 7-ton to 8-ton midi excavator:
They use the standard bucket size of 12-36 inches. Their grading bucket size should be between 60-72 inches.
- 10-ton to 15-ton excavators:
Their standard bucket size should be 18-48 inches, and the grading bucket size should be 72 inches.
- 19-ton to 25-ton excavators:
Standard bucket sizes range from 18-60 inches, and grading bucket sizes should be 84 inches.
So, these are the size charts of mini excavators and midi excavators buckets. But, here you want to know how to calculate your mini excavator bucket capacity or lift ratio. These are also important aspects in choosing the right size and type of bucket for your mini excavators.
How to Calculate Mini Excavator Bucket Capacity?
A lot of elements determine mini excavator bucket capacity such as material density, production rate, and fill factor. Every bucket has its capacity and works for different types of projects.
Follow these steps to calculate the mini excavator bucket capacity:
- Determine the weight of the material you are going to lift.
- Check the fill factor sheet of the bucket and find out how much material that bucket can handle.
- Now, determine the time of digging operation of your mini excavator. Start the timer when the bucket starts to dig in and stop the timer when the bucket starts to dig on the next load. Now, divide the number by 60 to find the cycle time.
- Now, determine the hourly production rate. For it, divide your hourly goal weight of the material by the cycle time. Let’s suppose, your goal is to lift 400 tons per hour, and the cycle rate is 100 cycles per hour. It means you must move 400/100=4 tons per cycle.
- Now, decide on the bucket’s nominal capacity. For it, divide the cycle payload amount by the material density you discovered in the first cycle.
- Now, when you divide the nominal capacity by the material’s fill factor, you will get the needed capacity of the bucket for the specific material.
How to Calculate Mini Excavator Lift Ratio?
Determining the mini excavator bucket capacity is not enough, you need to determine the mini excavator lift ratio. This is necessary to ensure that your machine can efficiently lift it.
- Obtain your mini excavator’s maximum lift capacity. This will be present with the machine’s specific data.
- Now, add this maximum capacity to the weight of the bucket. You will get adjusted lift capacity.
- Add the weight of additional arm attachments.
- Find the density of the material you need to move through the standard charts.
- Find the potential max fill weight of the bucket by multiplying the bucket capacity by the material density.
- Now, find the lift ratio by dividing the lift weight by the adjusted lift ratio.
If the lift ratio is less than 1, you can start the project. But if it is higher than 1, the bucket is not suitable for the job. You either need a large excavator or a small bucket.
Wrap Up:
This is the ultimate guide to bucket size and type of mini excavator. You must choose the right size and type of mini excavator bucket to make sure that it fulfilled your job successfully.
If you need to buy a mini excavator for your next project or to earn money from it, do consider the Hixen mini excavator. We will not only supply you with a Chinese digger but will also help you in selecting the right bucket sizes and types with it.
Do contact us for more details. We will be more than glad to help you.
