Engineering Machinery Parts
Lego Wheel Bucket Excavator 42055 Review
Lego Wheel Bucket Excavator 42055 Review
A wheel bucket excavator (BWE) is a massive piece of mining equipment used to continuously remove loose material such as dirt and rock from the surface of an open pit mine.wheel bucket excavator These machines have a large rotating bucket wheel that continuously scoops material up and deposit it into an integrated conveyor system within the machine. These conveyors then transport the excavated materials away from the BWE to a fleet of trucks that will take them elsewhere for processing or transportation.
BWEs can be found in open pit mining applications where they are used to remove the overburden, or the loose top layer of earth that lies over the coal seam.wheel bucket excavator The largest BWEs are known as gantry types which use tall gantry booms and cables to support the bucket wheel arm. These types are common in lignite mining, where they provide continuous overburden removal and slewing of the excavator to access different sections of the underlying seam. They are also used to build coal and other mining stockpiles. Other types of BWEs include stacker/reclaimers, which reclaim pre-deposited bulk materials from existing stockpiles and transport them to processing plants.
42055 is the only BWE in the current Technic line and is one of the biggest sets Lego has ever produced, not just in terms of its size but its piece count as well. It is a very impressive set and a worthy addition to the collection of Technic construction vehicles.
The first section of the build focuses on assembling the base of the excavator. This includes a substantial number of 1x1 round and 2x2 dome bricks as well as a few cylinders. Once the base is built, construction moves on to the numbered bags that make up the rest of the set. The third bag adds the 88 black tracks, and while they may seem monotonous to build, the progress is satisfying and rapid. The final three bags complete the superstructure of the excavator, with the last two adding cab components and the newly released Yellow odd length axles.
Once the superstructure is complete, the remaining parts in the set are mainly dedicated to the control systems. A single PF motor powers the BWE, with the middle gearbox lever switching between rotation of the bucket wheel and movement of the excavator on its axis or forward/backwards. It’s a bit of a letdown that the controls aren’t more sophisticated but the fact that it actually works and does so well is impressive.
The most impressive feature of the BWE is its massive bucket wheel, which can pick up a whole lot of studs and 1x1 round bricks at once. In the video below, Sariel shows how it works and you can clearly see that the BWE is extremely effective at picking up 'rocks' from the ground.
0users like this.
