Looking to add a thumb to this, there is an open spot on the valve for 2 way I believe, wondering if anyone has had experience with Showtime, their thumb is .75 thick vs Cat @ .625 thick and it comes with the mount to weld too the stick. Not sure how to control either? Solenoid's or floor pedal?
Hi, I did this on my cat 316. I had showtime quote me a thumb. It looked really quality but it was double the cost of a bedrock progressive thumb which is a Chinese clone of the oem. I’ve used it a lot and it’s quality. I had no lines or anything on my cat so I got the joystick, pilot solenoids and line kit from hkx. It all worked out really well. Basically taping into nearby pressure ports under the cab to solenoids then to the main valve. Installing reliefs and setting them on the main valve. Wiring the solenoids from computer outputs. Cost me around 13k for everything on my size machine.
Thanks for the input, I have no lines either HKX was no help but I can get them from cat, I have an unused valve on the unit and I’m still trying to figure out control.
If you have a nice machine using all cat parts isn’t a bad idea. For my excavator at 10,000 hours it was $25,000 for the cat thumb and line group alone and that was 3 years ago. Then you still need the solenoids, joystick, and pilot lines. The showtime thumb was within $1,000 of the cat oem thumb which is probably why you’re debating on the two. One thing I’ll say is I looked for the longest time for a cat bucket to fit my thumb which I finally found. There were a lot of aftermarket available and were super heavy duty but they were quite a bit heavier than the cat bucket. By the time you get done with the thumb, bracket, cylinder, coupling, and bucket it’s a good amount of weight so I felt like cat had a toughness to weight ratio figured out. I know you’re not looking for a bucket but may be something to consider with the thumb design depending on what you’re going to be doing.
Decided on the Bedrock thumb, was able to work with CAT on boom lines and they helped with HKX to put the controls package together. Next is the install, hopefully it goes smooth
That will be a nice setup. HKX has good tech support and they are very responsive if you have any issues.