Product profile: Tinbin TC2

The compact Tinbin TC2 dry vac excavation unit offers versatility and efficiency on challenging job sites

Vacuum excavators come in a couple of shapes and forms, with the hydro-vac method that uses water as an excavation medium being the most visible, thanks to their impressive holding tanks and pipes that snake around the truck-mounted machines.

Despite the complicated look to them, hydro-vac equipment is essentially a large vacuum cleaner with a connected waterblaster. Operators sluice (wash) away the spoil around the area being excavated and it’s sucked into a holding tank for disposal at an offsite facility.

While hydro-vacs have made the life of utility contractors significantly easier to expose sensitive cables and underground piping, the use of water for the excavation process can leave the surrounding area wet to work and prone to further subsidence, not to mention using water near electricity is never a good combination.

Another issue is that the slurry for disposal contains a significant amount of water, which limits the number of facilities that can accept the spoil compared to dry material.

This is where dry vacuum excavation comes into its own as an alternative method. As you’ve quickly figured out, it doesn’t involve water, but suffice to say, that’s pretty much the only difference between the two techniques. Both hydro-vacs and dry-vacs have their uses in the marketplace and it’s not a case of one being better than the other.

Tinbin TC2

The need not to hold the excavated material in a watertight vessel for later disposal means a dry excavation machine can be a smaller unit and as such, can be fitted onto smaller trucks, tracked carriers, or in the case of the Tinbin TC2, an excavator.

Aiming to be front and centre of excavator-mounted spoil removal work, the Tinbin TC2 has recently landed on the product shelf of Kiwi distributor Robur Hire, who has units available for hire or purchase.

Made to fit an excavator of around 13 tonnes, the Tinbin TC2 measures some 2410 x 1450 x 2200mm and has a deadweight of 1300kg. A large portion of that space is the storage tank that can hold 0.75 cubic metres of excavated spoil.

The unit operates in the same way as one that’s tracked or truck-mounted except that it’s fitted and powered by the excavator’s hydraulic system.

Wellington-based contractor Alex Boon has been using a Tinbin TC2 on infrastructure work, which often sees him working in difficult-to-access areas.

“We’ve been operating the Tinbin off a wheeled excavator and it has been ideal for getting in and around the different job sites,” he says.

“I was intrigued to see how it would perform, and so far, it has exceeded expectations.”

Different nozzles for different materials

Alex explains that they’ve found numerous uses for the machine, with one example being the location of long-term buried cables that were surrounded by a pit of broken concrete.

“The nozzle we were using has two cutouts around the circumference and can be set to rotate, which helps dislodge material. It exposed everything easily, so we were able to work around exposed reinforcing rods and broken ducting.”

Different suction nozzles are available and can be easily swapped out, so the Tinbin can be used in a variety of applications and materials.

A nozzle mounted on a flexible tube adds another level of versatility to the Tinbin TC2, allowing a second person to manoeuvre the nozzle around the excavation area. The suction tube is suspended by a cable to reduce the physical strain on the operator.

Disposal of spoil

When it comes to getting rid of the excavated material, the TinBin TC2 has an advantage over a unit fitted to a tracked carrier. Once the excavation work is complete or the storage bin has been filled, it can be easily lifted and dumped into a tip truck for disposal offsite or repurposed on-site. Again, a big plus with material that has been dry excavated is that it’s much easier to work with as opposed to something that has been turned into a slurry.

Suction power

Of course, using the hydraulic power of an excavator to run a unit such as the Tinbin TC2 requires a machine that has two auxiliary circuits and the oil flow to deliver the much-needed suction, especially to one that’s designed to remove objects the size of an adult’s closed fist.

“We haven’t had issues with the suction power of the machine, but the unit itself is oil-hungry, so the operator needs to take into account the needs for prioritising the attachment or setting the machine up with proportional controls,” says Alex.

“It has been ideal for our uses, and I can see a number of different applications where it will have an advantage over traditional digging methods or wet-vac excavation work. For us, it’s the real deal — it’s not a toy.”

For more information, visit robur.co.nz

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