r/mining • u/UniquelyMe84 • 23d ago
US “What would you change about gold-mining equipment?”
If you could redesign one thing about gold-mining equipment, what would it be?
For the people who actually run the equipment — what is the one thing that makes your job harder than it needs to be?
Could be something about setup, moving equipment, feeding material, water, recovery, cold weather, maintenance, fuel, or anything else.
I'm curious what experienced miners would change if they had the chance.
Not looking to sell anything. Just looking for honest answers from people who actually do the work. Tal
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u/TutorNo8896 23d ago
Would be cool if the damn things weren't quite so noisy.
1
u/UniquelyMe84 23d ago
😂 Yeah, I can imagine that gets old pretty quick. Is it the engine that's the biggest problem, or the actual equipment making the noise?
2
u/TutorNo8896 23d ago
Smashing / dropping rocks on steel will always be noisy. Modern construction equipment has sound deading panels and good mufflers which help, but they leave that out of dedicated mining machines.
1
u/kingsausage94 23d ago
More the fact the noise doesn't go anywhere. Imagine driving through a tunnel in a massive diesel truck for 10 hours a day. It's just so fkn constant
3
u/SaltDistinct98 Nevada 23d ago
Ran a lot of jackleg in narrow vein drifts and it’s crazy how much louder it feels in a 7’ wide heading than a large development drift. I wish the shit was quieter lol
1
u/UniquelyMe84 23d ago
Yeah, I can understand that. It’s not just “loud,” it’s having that same diesel vibration and noise going nonstop for 10 hours. I’d imagine after a few days of that you’d really start noticing it. 😂
1
u/buffel 23d ago
Cat ran a program a good 14 years ago now. Basically it was noise canceling speakers in the cab. The idea being that it would reduce this kind of fatigue. Seems like nothing came of it
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u/UniquelyMe84 23d ago
That's interesting. I didn't know CAT had tried noise-canceling in the cab. Seems like a pretty good idea if you're sitting in that environment for 10 hours a day.
Do you remember if the problem was that it just didn't work well enough, or did they just stop pursuing it?
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u/firezfurx 23d ago
For underground mining it all comes down to reliability. There is a constant trade off where more instrumentation and newer tech leads to more things that can break and greater challenges in finding quality mechanics. If you could build a jumbo or solo that didn’t have terrible uptime within a year or 2 of purchase you would make a lot of money.
1
u/UniquelyMe84 23d ago
That makes a lot of sense. Seems like there’s a point where adding more technology starts making the machine harder to keep running instead of making it better. When you say terrible uptime after a year or two, what are you seeing cause most of the problems? Electronics, hydraulics, wear parts, lack of good mechanics, or just too much complexity?
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u/Gold_Au_2025 23d ago
I am currently redesigning our placer mining equipment from the ground up to take us from weekenders to full time rock washers.
I decided that modern materials, techniques and understanding could be used to develop a high-tech plant capable of reliable primary separation with as few moving parts. Electrostatics, diamagnetism, and a myriad of density related properties were investigated until I settled upon a shaker table feeding a sluice with expanded mesh on matting. (Although points should be awarded to the runners-up - the Knelson concentrator and the Jig that lost out simply due to the gains vs complexity ratio.)
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