So how fast does this excavator with no drive capability crawl? First, bear in mind that it really does crawl. Literally. It moves by lifting up the arm, extending it out, putting it down, then pulling itself forwards. And repeat.

Second, bear in mind that this process is really slow.

(Third, please bear in mind I’ve never driven an excavator before, so there is a learning curve here. Feel free to blame the slowness on the driver (me). But I’ll ignore this part for today.)

So now that the excavator project is fully built and operational, I figured it was time to move it out of the way to a semi-permanent parking spot for the rainy season:

Me being who I am, I timed this process to see how quickly the thing can move around. (It was raining the entire time, so I don’t know if the muddiness affected things or not.)

So… it took me a whopping 20 minutes to drive it (err… crawl it?) about 40 meters. This comes out to only about 3cm per second average. My normal step size is about 60cm, so for reference, this is like taking one step every 20 seconds.

I actually hoped to get about double this speed, Maybe I can do better if I get more experience. And additionally, it might help if I get the hydraulic flow limiter on the “shoulder” piston, which moves ridiculously quickly. I am taking significantly more time each step as I carefully open this valve just a crack to raise and lower the arm. But still, this is a slow mover.

I’ve been considering buying a cheap micro dump-truck-like vehicle I’ve seen around for about $1000 that might be able to tow this excavator. Then, if I need to move soil, I can use the excavator to dig it and lift it into the dump truck vehicle and drive it to the new spot to dump it. (It looked something like this.)

Or then again, for projects that would take all day (or longer) to dig by hand, sitting in a comfortable chair for 20 minutes pulling levers isn’t really too big a deal, is it?