[Job Story] Cat Operator Designs his Own Excavator

As an employed excavator driver, Nico Busse dreamed of the idea for a long time and considered whether it would be possible to finance his own construction machine. “I didn’t want to leave anything to chance,” he admits. Now he put his plans into action.

Nico Busse wants to keep his new work equipment as flexible as possible. That is why only a new-generation wheeled excavator M314 came into question, and it should not be a standard model, but a high-tech machine and function like a Swiss army knife. A fully hydraulic quick coupler, tiltrotator including grapple, bucket, pallet fork, levelling bar and wide tyres as well as a trailer coupling plus a road permit with 32 km/h are the result of the equipment, which he wants to expand in the future. What the excavator driver from Saxony has in mind for the future: to make full use of the technical possibilities. Because his firm conviction is that an excavator can do more than just dig a trench.

Ralf Dieckmann, senior sales representative at Zeppelin’s Leipzig branch, who had advised him on the matter confirms:

“The customer had been thinking about it for years and had given a lot of thought to which technical equipment would be best for him”

Therefore, Nico Busse visited their workshop more than once and exchanged ideas with the service staff so that his dream construction machine would be realised and function as he intended. For example, the tiltrotator and the fully hydraulic quickcoupler required a different control of the hydraulics, but the planned trailer coupling also required an adjustment. In addition, joystick functions had to be assigned twice.

Nico Busse says:

“Because my wheeled excavator is supposed to be a high-speed excavator with which I can drive from A to B at 32 km/h without a low loader and without any fuss, everything had to fit for the acceptance by the TÜV.” 

But that was not the only requirement. Instead of twin tyres, he wanted 65-centimetre-wide balloon tyres installed, as they are often used in forestry operations. Because this creates less ground pressure.

“I am on the road in Lusatia, where there is a lot of sandy soil. Twin tyres get a problem with traction there. To implement such equipment details, the Zeppelin Customizing department was also involved on the part of headquarters.Balloon tyres have changed the overall width of the machine, because they have a different cross-section than standard tyres and thus influence the steering angle and pendulum travel. Consequently, the distance to the mudguards has changed, so they had to be moved and new steps had to be installed. All of this had to be taken into account, and this against the background of road approval, retrofitting of the trailer coupling and the fact that we are dealing with a new generation of machines, which was also new territory for us at the time of the branch,”

explains Ralf Dieckmann.  

Nico Busse knows what is feasible because of his years of experience as a construction equipment operator. The 41-year-old completed this training for three years until 1999. Even as a child, he was an absolute fan of Cat construction machinery.

“I have engine oil in my blood and when I pass construction sites, I always take a particularly close look at what’s going on there,”

he says, explaining his fondness for technology. His grandfather drove him to kindergarten in a truck and he learned about the professional opportunities of an excavator driver through his father. Even in his training company, a wheeled excavator was his regular machine, until he then changed employers and came to a company with a machine park with 60 Cat machines. “I always wanted to operate the biggest and heaviest excavator in the company,” he says – because he is highly motivated, he always wanted to develop himself further. The opportunity came with a Cat 345B crawler excavator – the last few years he operated machines in the 30 tonne class. All these years, the thought of self-employment and owning his own excavator never left him. “I had reached a point where I wanted to start over again,” he explains with passion and enthusiasm when talking about his new job and the work in the future.

With the Cat wheeled excavator, he wants to offer other construction companies his services in road construction, civil engineering and pipeline construction. The first job takes his mobile excavator to Eisenhüttenstadt, where four empty pipes are currently being inserted into the protective strip of the existing gas pipeline. He has to open and refill launch pits for the cable plough and restore the surface. In the future, Nico Busse envisages taking on contracts for municipalities as well as entering the fields of agriculture and forestry. He has geared the new Cat M314 with the X18 tiltrotator and a Steelwrist grapple for this purpose. Steelwrist’s trademark – the colour green – runs through the logo on the construction machine, but can also be read from the green-jacketed hydraulic lines.

“I always say that the tiltrotator is my wrist and the gripper pliers are my thumb and index finger. This results in completely different possibilities. Even on the pipeline construction site, the grab tongs are used to easily thread the empty pipe into the cable plough,” he says, illustrating the extended functions of his construction machine with which he wants to stand out from the competition. He hopes to make work steps easier and to support colleagues on the construction site so that they have to do less shovelling by hand and shovel. He knows what he can achieve with this combination from previous construction sites where he has worked with it. He did not choose a fixed tiltrotator, but a sandwich construction so that it does not protrude. For him, a fully hydraulic SQ60 quick coupler is indispensable when changing between two buckets with a width of 30 and 80 millimetres and a pallet fork in a matter of seconds. He is planning to buy mulchers and hedge trimmers, but also a trailer on which he wants to carry his attachments in the future. That is why he has had a trailer hitch specially made.

In order to always keep an eye on costs and to keep his machine in top condition, he has opted for the Zeppelin Full Service with a term of five years or 6,000 operating hours. He wants to leave open the option of having the pre-equipped and integrated assistance systems, such as 3D control, activated at a later date. “Working with 3D is becoming more and more popular because it speeds up work processes compared to the conventional construction method with string and wooden pegs. The big plus: the terrain model is already on the excavator, so I know where to start,” explains Nico Busse.

Because he has moved many construction machines from different manufacturers himself, he also knows what to expect from his new Cat. What fascinates him about these machines is their development history.

“There is something behind it. You can see that in the whole range of Caterpillar machines, from a 900-kilo to a thousand-ton excavator. It’s unbelievable how the excavators have developed in recent years. Thanks to electro-hydraulic pilot control, construction machines have made a big leap forward. My colleagues on the construction site are already curious about everything in my machine and what is possible with it. But I would also like to use it to introduce new construction machinery technology to the next generation and put the profession of construction equipment operator in the right light.”