Bucyrus 3270 Dragline

[mog69]

Hi out there
Anybody got any information on this dragline? It's an old type, but any data on weights, boom length, bucket size etc would a great help.
Thanks
mog69

 

[kenvlach]

Did you google it?
Start with the manufacturer:

http://www.bucyrus.com/

Two views of an Bucyrus-Erie 3270-W at Ayrshire Mine, Elliot, IN, out-of-service in 2004. From 'The Coal Industry - Draglines' at

http://www.davehonan.com/various/draglines.html

Also, "The first 3270 (the Lot-1 machine,-- shown here)was comissioned in late 1979, Carrying a 176CU-YD bucket at the end of a 330 Ft. boom, and weighing in at around 17.5 million pounds.." --

http://www.stripmine.org/mong101.htm

"Only two Bucyrus-Erie 3270-Ws were ever built, both for the AMAX coal company. They are the second largest draglines Bucyrus-Erie ever built, only slightly smaller, but much more reliable, than the largest-ever Big Muskie. The 3270Ws weigh 17.5 million pounds and carried 176 cubic yard buckets on the end of 330 foot main booms. They are so heavy that rather than using tracks they actually walk on pods and they use so much power that rather than having engines they pull power directly from the main electric power grid. In order to prevent transient surges from blacking out the grid they are equipped with huge flywheels to buffer the load." --

http://128.83.80.200/mcoupe/nagpt.html

 

[mog69]

Thanks Kenvlach

I yahooed it and got something similar from Fred Monger.
It seems that only two were ever built, so I guess there's not going to be a particularly big pool of info out there !

Thanks again
mog69

 

[kenvlach]

Is there a 3270 model (w/o the 'W' which I guess is for the walking mode of motion)?

 

[mog69]

In the Bucyrus designation system, there shouldn't be any duplication of numbers having different suffices.
There's a whole different range of numbers for each machine type, typically 2 digit for drills, 3 digit for shovels and 4 digit for draglines, so I think we've found all the 3270's there are to find !
Thanks again
mog69

 

[TomG33]

"Is there a 3270 model (w/o the 'W' which I guess is for the walking mode of motion)?"

The simple answer is No. You are correct, the "w" designates a walking dragline. the other option is Crawler mounted however they are only used on the smaller ones.I am not sure what suffix they write for that. The biggest problem with the crawler mounted ones is in order to turn and change direction of travel, the tracks have to sprag, meaning that one is locked up and the other is run on it's own, resulting in sideways slipping of the tracks across the ground. This is impossible in anything but the smallest ones. For the walking ones, Turning is much easier because the shoes are attached to the top part of the machine which can swing freely on it's vertical axis. The "Tub" remains on the ground and the top part is turned until it is in the desired orientation, then the Walk mode is invoked.

Tom

 

[mongerf]

hello, I worked for Amax Coal Co as a Chief Electrician, with the BE 3270 at Delta Mine. It is/was truly an amazing machine!
It was powered by a single 25KV, 3ph power cable, which powered two 25kv/6900v subs, one on each side of the machine. There were 6 motor/generator sets, each with a 3,000 hp sync motor at 6,900vac driving dc generators. A lot of 800 hp dc motors were responsible for all the motions - I believe 6 swing motors, 14 drag motors, and 12 hoist motors? not sure.
Some other details - while walking, each step took about 1.5 minutes, and moved around 6 feet. I believe the tub was 90 feet diameter. Controls were all General Electric. There were two power control rooms, one upstairs and one down. All that power was controlled by a 0-10v signal for each motion! The walking motion was mechanically separate on each side, and was synchronized by resolvers. Huge dc transfer switches switched the swing generators to run the walking motors. The motors and generators were connected in several different Ward-Leonard loops, which was all in series - motor, generator, motor, generator, etc. I believe the GE controller was called Directomatic II.