TRAINING & SIMS
including Komatsu, Caterpillar, Liebherr, Hitachi, Volvo, Toyota, Scania, Iveco & BELAZ – across their full range of Advanced Equipment Simulator platforms.
Designed for high-throughput, the LX6 + simulator combines a compact classroomready design and motion-base functionality.“ The LX3 + and LX6 + represent a major step forward in our mission to deliver scalable, high-impact training solutions to the mining industry,” said Karen Joseph, Executive VP of Engineering at Immersive Technologies.“ The addition of the motion base functionality provides mining operations with a powerful tool to accelerate workforce readiness while optimising simulator utilisation and cost.”
The LX6 +“ stands out as a highly adaptable equipment simulator for surface mining across machine groups, thanks to its wide horizontal field of view,” enabling truck trainees to safely navigate intersections and shovel operators to spot trucks with precision. Its large vertical field of view ensures optimal ground visibility for digging, dozing, and grading tasks.
Immersive Technologies’ Conversion Kits are fully interchangeable across simulator platforms, empowering sites to simulate a diverse range of equipment without additional hardware investment. It says this flexibility ensures mining operations can meet compliance and productivity goals while optimising training budgets.
Sandvik invests in Turku training
Over the past two years, Sandvik’ s Load and Haul division has made significant investments to make improvements for its technical training specialists. The reason is because hundreds of Sandvik service technicians and customer maintenance techs come to Sandvik’ s Turku factory each year for in-depth product technical training.
Sandvik told IM it has added an interactive touch screen television as well as two large loader training simulators – one for diesel and one for battery-electric. When there are no classes, the digital trainers are designed to easily be disassembled and ship off to a customer for use as well.
Sandvik adds that it prides itself on the realistic nature of its digital trainers for its large trucks and loaders.“ To contribute to that, we recently updated the training software to switch between the different control systems that are available for Sandvik loaders and trucks. This allows users to experience the exact same alerts and notifications as if they were operating in a mine.”
The digital portable simulators offer a diverse range of training simulations ranging from diesel Toro ® LH410 to the Toro ® LH621i, which have a different control system than the Toro ® LH515i diesel loader and Toro ®
LH518iB battery / electric loader. What is technical training by Sandvik Load and Haul?“ It’ s everything to do with the machine. Starting from the basic layout and safety aspects, then we get more technical throughout the week. That can be the engine or battery technology to the control system, our current set up let’ s us go into a lot of detail,” said David Ham, Technical Training Specialist with Sandvik Load and Haul.
Along with being able to do remote trainings, the touch screen allows him to focus in on 3D models and pull out a specific component to answer questions or provide further details.
But there is also a lot of training that takes place before someone gets to Turku.“ The structure of the training was very valuable for me, especially the pre-study requirements,” said Ulf Bergling, Sandvik BEV Technician, who came to Turku for Product Specialist training. Before you hop on a plane to Turku, Finland for classroom and simulator training, you have a series of mandatory e-learnings before your enrollment is accepted.” Ham said this is to make sure everyone is at the same knowledge level when they arrive. Trainees also leave with a lot of course material.“ In many cases, they served as my workshop manual and I’ ve even used some of the material for customer presentations during machine commissioning,” Bergling said.
This course information comes from Sandvik Digital Learning Specialist Masoumeh Asefi. She also creates the 3D models of the equipment that can be disassembled when needing to focus on a specific component. Along with gathering materials, she is working with a third party company to develop a VR training environment. Working with product masters and subject matter experts, the goal will be to customise the environment for each training.
Sandvik has a series of Digital Trainers for large loaders and trucks, including diesel and electric underground mining loaders and underground hard rock mining trucks. The Digital Trainer- LH and Digital trainer- TH offer real-world training on Toro ® LH517i, LH621i, LH515i and LH518iB loaders; plus Toro ® TH663i and TH551i dump trucks. They are available as a full cabin simulator or in a portable version. Sandvik:“ The realistic feel comes from it being mounted on a motion base platform as well as three large displays showing the mining environment. As well as general operator training, individual training sessions can be tailored for each user, including fault alarms and emergency situations.”
Some of the overall benefits include training without increasing engine hours on the actual machines and that training can be started well before the actual machine arrives at site. The display is available in 17 languages.
Epiroc’ s new simulator options
News for this year in the sims area from Epiroc is that it has released the Boomer M20 application. Malin Lindberg, Senior Product Specialist- Learning Tools:“ It is currently available with a Mark 11 kit mounted on an existing full cabin or classroom simulator or as a desktop. The Mark 11 kit reflects the carrier control system which is available on almost every underground drilling rig delivered today. With the shift to Mark 11, Epiroc has left the traditional steering wheel and operator control panels behind and implemented a computercontrolled system for tramming operation and carrier control( CCS) with a touch screen and digital buttons.”
The next step in the journey of adapting the simulator offering to its real machines is to design a completely new simulator platform for Epiroc’ s underground drilling classroom and full cabin simulators. Lindberg says this will be started in the near future.
Epiroc has also recently announced the global release of the Essential Simulator Portfolio to complete the Premium Simulator Portfolio developed and produced in Sweden. The Essential simulators are developed and produced in China as advanced training solutions for mining and construction equipment operators. Essential simulators are available in three flexible platforms and support a wide range of Epiroc equipment, including drills, loaders, and trucks equipped with Direct Control System( DCS) and Electrical Control System( ECS).
With demonstration made through a hi-tech interactive system, Epiroc simulators are able to reproduce and present local mining environment in an all-round and intuitive way.“ By creating a lifelike vision and fully immersive operation training experience, the simulator can provide customers with services of occupational skill certification and safety construction training to ensure the trainees are capable of operating real equipment after the completion of simulator training.”
Epiroc simulators are available for sale as a whole, or for short-term lease. Epiroc essential simulators offer two types of control system – an Electric Control System( ECS) or Direct Control System( DCS). The Electric Control System( ECS) consists of a central Programmable Logic Control called the PLC unit that handles the functionality of the machine. The Direct Control System( DCS) consists of a series of hydraulic valves. The system is controlled by using levers to direct the hydraulic flow to the function it is supposed to control.
30 International Mining | NOVEMBER / DECEMBER 2025