A Chinese Mini Excavator? Seriously?

Delivery on this was pretty slow but it finally showed up on a flatbed Saturday. Ordered 2/16/24, delivered 4/6/24. According to the guy I bought it from they were hung up in customs in California. I was surprised it didn't show up in a couple of crates on a freight truck. Instead, it showed up on a hot shot truck. He had made 2 other deliveries on the way to me. 

The beast in question is the Typhon Stomp. 23 hp V-twin Briggs and Stratton Vanguard engine. 3-stage hydraulic pump for running attachments. I went with this one because I could order it with a trencher attachment and they make a whole series of attachments for it. I'll be ordering a mower attachment next. 

This is another situation where the rental was going to be $345+/day. Buying a name-brand used one was going to cost $15k. This, new with the trencher attachment was right at $10k. 

It's fairly well built. Most of the frame is 3/8 plate. It tips the scale at 2000+- pounds. 

3 stage pump allowed it to run accessories without taking power away from the tracks. 

It will run high-pressure accessories and high-volume accessories. 

The controls are going to take some getting used to. Tracks are forward/reverse on each stick. Lift is left/right on the left stick and dump is left/right on the right stick. The little stick in the center is the accessory circuit. 

It has an enormous hydraulic cooler. 

The fan for it is thermostatically controlled. 

I did have one issue. The fuel line at the tank had a loose hose clamp and was leaking. Other than that it looks to be very well built.

The trencher attachment works as advertised. It munched through the roots at the base of a pine tree without issue. 

This, the excavator, and the Mud Mixer will also allow me to expand into the automatic gate business.

In a month or so, I'll haul it to the mountains and put it to work. 

Here's a couple of super short videos. 

Trencher. 

Lifting. I figure my utility trailer probably weighs in at around 2000 pounds so the machine was lifting somewhere around 1000 pounds, maybe a little less. I think it's rated at 800 pounds. 

So, I ordered a mower to run on the mini skid. Overall it looks pretty good. I dug it out of the box and sure enough, it cuts grass. 

However, it did have a slight issue. This is the castor bracket that holds the wheels. Notice any issues? The castors don't have any castor to them. Undoubtedly due to a lack of quality control. 

The proper thing to do was make a phone call and have them send me some but I'm short on time. I need this in Creston, NC on Friday. 

With that in mind, I fixed them. A little chopping, a little bending, and a little welding later I have 4 castors. 

The only other problem I found was a lack of grease fittings on the pivot shafts for the castors. While I was working on it, I drilled the bosses and installed some. 

It was hotter than 7 hells when I finished. I was more interested in AC than taking pictures. What you see is what I took. 

What will you use the mower for? Woods/clearing or lawn?

In reply to eedavis :

I have a bank along a creek that I would like to keep clear. This will be used to keep the brush down to a dull roar. 

Since the advent of this thread, I have gained a greater understanding of the likely origin of Toyman!'s screen name.

Apparently, electric mini-excavators are a pretty fair deal if you buy them buy them buy the shipping container?

https://electrek.co/2025/02/03/i-bought-a-container-full-of-chinese-electric-excavators-heres-what-showed-up/

In reply to Karacticus :

That is basically where mine came from. A guy in town bought a container of them, gave them the once over, and sold them on Marketplace. I paid more than I would have at auction but reading some of the problems people have had, I think I got a better machine. 

Both of my machines are still going strong and have done pretty much everything I have asked them to. I may have an idler bearing on the skid steer that is making noise, I can't tell if it's the track squeaking in the roller or the bearing itself. I'm going to pull the center pins and drill them for grease fittings. I may even do it before one of the bearings fails. 

In reply to 1988RedT2: Lol, you aren't wrong. 

The more I look through this thread the bigger the list of weird little machines I want gets. 

Paris Van Gorder said:

The more I look through this thread the bigger the list of weird little machines I want gets. 

Tomorrow you will discover that you need something that, up until today, you never knew existed! 

1988RedT2 said:

Paris Van Gorder said:

The more I look through this thread the bigger the list of weird little machines I want gets. 

Tomorrow you will discover that you need something that, up until today, you never knew existed! 

I didn't know I needed a plasma cutter until I got one. 🤘🏻

Paris Van Gorder said:

The more I look through this thread the bigger the list of weird little machines I want gets. 

Anyone willing to attempt to justify purchase for  doing double duty as an engine hoist?

In reply to Karacticus :

They get pretty tippy with that much weight hanging on the boom. The hydraulics will do it but make sure you add plenty of counterweight. 

Toyman! said:

In reply to Karacticus :

They get pretty tippy with that much weight hanging on the boom. The hydraulics will do it but make sure you add plenty of counterweight. 

Yeah mine carried a huge stump and root ball across the yard a couple weeks ago. Probably 600-ish lbs. It nose-planted a couple times going down a gentle slope and hitting a bump,so that seemed to be about the working limit, at least for traversing. And that was with the boom tucked in pretty good. If you're extending you'll obviously have less capacity.

That said, some bracing or counterweighting would turn it into an awesome medium duty cherry picker. You;re not going to carry Hemi's and big-block around but I bet it would pluck an aluminum LS or pretty much any four cylinder out fairly well. 

They do kind of lack in fine hydraulic control, though. If you want to move something half an inch, plan on it taking several moves of three inches to get it right where you want it. 

Look at what you guys are doing to me..

STOP IT.  I DON'T NEED ONE.    Except for the driveway project..  And, and, and...

Dammit. I had pushed these to the back of my mind while the thread cooled off. Any opinions on the QH12R?

In reply to AAZCD-Jon (Forum Supporter) :

The QH12 used to have a slightly smaller front boom than my H12, but it looks like they've updated that now. Basically you want one with the 13.5hp Briggs. Everything else is pretty universal to these machines. That 13.5 is basically the 420cc Harbor Freight Predator V twin, so if you ever need a motor there's one as close as your local HF for under $400. 

Add a hydraulic thumb and you're in good shape.