Has anyone tried this thing?
https://www.sherpaminiloaders.com/eng/models/sherpa-100-eco/ It's probably too small scale for alot of what you're doing. I don't like the price either but ventilation get's pricey and is a pain in the neck too. The CAVO would be the other option but those things sound a little wild. I was thinking of putting a golf cart car for it to fling rock at like MM was doing. The other option is rails but I have no experience there and am so remote there's no supply that I know of. The other obstacle is charging up electric equipment. Adit is up a hill 400' steep vertical feet from my power. I could run the cart down at the end of the day but the sherpa would be a chore everyday. Might run a power line to the adit. Are any other skid steers that are electric power out there?
Those little Sherpas are very cool, but also very expensive for what they are. They're like the miniature offspring of a JCI 50M mini-LHD. Like a JCI 50M, they'll be pretty tippy, especially on rough ground. If they were $4,000 used as opposed to $25,000, they'd be a bit more interesting but there are better options in that price range.
CAVOs and other overshot machines are indeed wild, and their compressed air requirements are hefty to say the least (600 CFM for an EIMCO 630). They also require a bull hose for air, so forget about long trams - that machine won't go far from the face without putting in some effort swapping hoses. Pretty easy to run over your hose if you're not careful. If you're serious about avoiding track, your only pneumatic options are a CAVO or EIMCO 630 crawler mucker. 630s are neat little machines, though they require 11' of vertical clearance to dump at minimum, and I wouldn't be surprised if you'd still smack your bucket lip on the back since they're designed to rock backwards when dumping to help empty the bucket. They're roughly 5' wide, and you'll want some clearance on either side so you don't scrape yourself off on a rib. If you'd like track, I have a friend in Fresno with more rail and cars than you can shake a stick at for cheap, plus a battery trammer (in need of batteries), and can pick you out an EIMCO overshot in 24" or 36" gauge this weekend.
No matter what you do - battery equipment, trailing cable equipment, or diesel - you'll need a genset on site if you get away from pneumatic equipment, and a big compressor if you don't. There's not really any getting away from a big diesel plant of some variety topside, so pick your poison: jumpy pneumatic equipment, expensive and small battery equipment, or running vent bags and a bigger fan.
Personally, I'm 100% on diesel for loading and haulage. If you can track down a machine with a purpose-built underground engine, its emissions will be much cleaner than anything built to run on the surface. I'm partial to small Deutz diesels - 6000 CFM at the face will be plenty. I have these little guys:
First machine is a 1983 EIMCO 911B, second is a 1977 5-ton Young Buggy. I bought
both machines for less than a new Sherpa 100 ECO. Honestly, if you can find an EIMCO 911 in good repair for $20,000 or less, buy it and accept the ventilation requirements. So long as you keep the hydraulic and fuel systems clean, they'll run circles around skid-steers and all the ultracompact/mini equipment. They're a little bit "over-bucketed" like most LHDs so getting a full bucket takes finesse, but each full bucket is 1.5 tons of quartz vein material and you can head for the portal at a jogging pace. Low center of gravity too, so not tippy. Biggest things are clean/quality fluids and keeping your cooling system happy and clean.
