I have an MB BF 70.2 crusher bucket and would like to start a discussion about them (or at least crusher buckets). I am using it for crushing on-site shot rock, or hammered rock, into a use-able product (structural fill, road base, or backfill). I have been having some issues with it and I can't seem to find any source of information or support. The support from MB is almost non-existant. I can call and get parts but there is no fruit when it comes to getting any answers as to why I'm having the issues that I am. I would absolutely love to have a disussion with other owners/users of this, or similar products, to share insights and knowledge. Please chime in/introduce yourself if you think you have something to contribute to this topic. I am more than willing to share what information I have gathered in return. I have had mine for about a year and have crushed limestone, sandstone, gneiss rock, granite and concrete. I have replaced several toggles (always break at the weld of the narrower end (at the jaw support), have already been through a set of dies (seem to have worn out very quickly), have replaced the bushing at the end of the preload shaft (recommendation of MB to address the toggles breaking), and I am now seeing cracks on the jaw support (at the corners of the rectangular pocket that holds the toggle). Any advice would be appreciated.
Are you adjusting your close side too tight? Are you using the recommended lubricant for the toggle linkage? What we do , we set our close side setting to what we think, then we ball up a big chunk of tin foil and feed it into the jaw to see what we get. Measure the tin foil, that is your true close side setting. I am speaking from experience with full size jaw crushers, but your implement seems to operate very much the same way. BTW is your feed material free of rebar and other non-crushable material. Oh and are you choke feeding it?
Thanks for the reply. I was starting to think that there would be no responses. The MFR does not recommend any lubricant at the toggle. I would think it would only pack up with dust in a matter of minutes anyway. We are crushing mostly to 3"-. I can go down to 1" and can open things up to about 6" material. I have not fed aluminum foil through it. We just check the material that it produces and adjust shims accordingly. The crusher is a jaw type so it is very similar to any other jaw. The main difference is that I can change the angle while crushing and can dump out any jams that may occur (most of the time). Our feed material does not usually have rebar in it, and if it did, the machine could crush regardless. There is not any belt or anything for the crushed material to fall on so rebar is only a problem if too big to fall through. I generally pre-break concrete to remove rebar anyway. We do get a lot of dirt running through (I'm sure that increases wear and slows production) but this is the closest thing to "non-crushable" material that we may run through. Ironically most of the jams we get are when we feed mostly clean stones into it. I have to be careful when "choke feeding". If one tips the bucket up too fast it will often jam. I think one of the drawbacks with this machine is that it is under powered (hydraulic motor to belt) and/or under flywheeled (could possibly use more flywheel weight). In general I will feed it as fast as I think it can take it. Just because of the way the bucket works it can only choke feed for short periods of time. This is when it is first tipped up and is full. As the crushing process continues the bucket empties and one then gets another scoop.
Well after studying the drawings and spec sheet for it, i see what you're saying about the material running out quickly. So my next question , are you feeding the machine static or do you have her running, scoop the material and keep feeding while shes running. Is your machine up to task, by thast i mean do you have adequate pressure and flow at the tool. Are you running in hammer or shear
37 gpm @ 3100psi thats a high demand when performing bucket arm and boom. You've got to be set up for 2 pump flow or auxiliary pump, depending on what hoe you're running
The machine will always take hydraulic priority over the attachment so one can't really keep things spinning while scooping more material. The best way I have found to work it is ti scoop the feed material and then engage the attachment prior to tipping it up (which is when the material starts to fall into the jaw). It doesn't really have enough power to engage the tool when rocks are tight against the jaws. It needs to rely on inertia to work effectively (same as any jaw I would think). Settings (hammer or shear) depend upon the machine in use. It seems that you are really asking if we are using a mono or bi-directional circuit when running this attachment. We have to run return oil straight back to tank (mono-directional) or we can't get flows without too much heat. Haven't even tried but the tool requirements are as such. One machine is a '17 Deere 245G and the other is an '03 Cat 315 CL. The Deere has many attachment pre-sets (customize-able) and one only has to select the attachment through the monitor. The Cat required an aftermarket attachment augmentation circuit (to get 2-pump flows) that requires manually changing to mono-directional and manual adjustment of the pressure relief cartridge to reach tool requirements. Both have been set/checked with flowmeter.
Running the tool on the Cat (40k pounds and less pump out put) is asking a lot of the hoe and the Deere (60k pounds and has (3) hydraulic pumps) has a much easier go of it.
Do either of your hoes have a toggle option on the joystick for hammer. Meaning , you press the switch, it stays on til you press it again. This would keep you flywheel in motion. The that would allow you to run the rest of the machine slowly off one pump. And yes, i was making sure you had a straight path back to tank. Thanks for clarifying
Both machines only run a momentary switch for attachment activation. If you think about the process it really doesn't make much sense (to me anyway) to keep stealing hydro power when not actually crushing. To clarify...These type of attachments can barely get the same output (in a day) as say a 100,000# mobile crusher does in an hour. I think a big part of that is because the mobile crusher is constantly crushing while the support machine keeps the feed hopper full (I know-way over simplified). On the crusher bucket much of the time is wasted trying to fill the bucket. Doing this any slower would be very counter productive especially considering that it only takes a couple seconds to get the flywheels up to speed.
Ok. Thats all i really got. If your jaw is running at speed, the materials entering the throat wont be able to jam or stall the jaws, thereby reducing stress. Momentum and speed are your friend in regards to the jaws. Good luck and i hope someone else can help
I am a Rep from MB Crusher. First I want to apologize that you have not been taken care of. Please contact me so I can get you the service answers you need
As for the machine it can actually be set up a little higher on the BF-70 I would run it at 40 GPM and 3200 PSI. and with the CAT I have had to have a CAT tech come out and set it with his computer. I have looked at Ritchie specs and it looks that the JD puts out 118 GPM or roughly 55 GPM. The Cat looks like it is running at roughly 67 GPM or 33 GPM. I would suggest using the John Deere.
If you could get me the serial number I will look at that as well.
I received your PM. I'm glad that you have reached out to me Clballangee. I have been waiting for a reply from MB for weeks now. The crusher has been partially disassembled for weeks now. I will call you tomorrow.
We just picked up a bf120, so far we have had one small hickup with some bolts coming loose but they have taken care of us immediately. They were going to fly up and fix it but I said it's not necessary as I can fix it in an afternoon. Time will tell how it holds up, so far I've been happy with the production it puts out, especially given the nature of the rock im feeding. It is some extremely hard rock.
Hi Tyler. Glad to hear that you are satisfied with production rates and your attachment thus far. This is promising. One must keep an eye on things because things do like to come loose (as I'm sure with all crushers to some degree). It has been a long time between crusher jobs for us. My crusher was in a state of disrepair for quite a while. I had lots of cracks on my jaw support. MB offered to make the repairs if I shipped it back to them. I decided to take them up on it because this would allow them to look over the entire unit to see of they thought that there might be any other contributing issues with it, I would not have to be the one to disassemble the entire unit (to make said crack repairs), and they said that they would also come out to make sure that we had everything set up correctly. The shipping ended up costing me $2k and the unit was delayed a long time (at least a month after promised delivery date). We missed a crushing job because of it. When we got the unit back MB said that the flywheels were out of time (that the compression/friction bolts had come loose and allowed the flywheels to rotate on the shaft which allowed them to get out of balance). They said that we needed to check this alignment and tighten those bolts daily. I decided to check it prior to using it as baseline. I followed MB's directions and, ironically, it was delivered out of time! We ended up loosening the bolts and putting the flywheels back in time/balance. To date nobody has come out to check on things as promised (it has been 4 or 5 months now). In retrospect I would have rather done the work here and had my welder make the repairs as the weld quality appears to be less than what I would expect from professional welder. We have just recently put it back into service and we are crushing limestone tallus that is about 2-3' thick. Production is still only about 10yph when trying to make 3"-. This is about 1/2 of production rates claimed by MB (from the brochure). You have said that your production rates are meeting your expectations. This is great news! Can you please provide more details? I would ask what material you are crushing (you said it's very hard)? What size are you crushing it to? What is your feed size? I would understand if you would prefer to discuss this privately. If so please PM me. I think that the sharing of information could be beneficial to both of us.
This is an old ass thread, I was wondering if anyone has had any more recent experience with the MB, or Xcentric buckets. Looking to possibly invest and this thread isn't very encouraging.
I have never heard anything from tylermckee (regarding his crusher) and I have nothing better to report than what I have already posted. In summary of my experience with MB I would say that the customer support is VERY poor and production rates are nowhere near what they claim. It is safe to assume that they would argue that the material is different (MB's production rates are based on concrete) and my feed size is too big. In fact this is what they are telling me now. To that I say that I get the same production rates when crushing concrete as I do most of my rock. Rock is usually harder than concrete and therefore should crush faster (will take less impacts to reduce the material to the size that will fall through the crusher). Dirt, especially if moist or wet, will reduce production considerably. As it relates to feed size the only production reduction I see is from jamming and hot stalling. This definitely makes a difference but I still have this happen when feeding smaller rock too. Regardless the salesman told me (before I bought the crusher) that you can feed any size material that will fit into the opening. Now that I have purchased it they are telling me to feed 10" minus. I am usually trying to make 3"- so that fits into the standard crushing rule of thumb which is a 4:1 reduction ratio (a rule that I have since learned). THIS IS NOT WHAT THEY SAID PRIOR TO THE SALE! They have yet to come out and verify flows and pressures (though I have done so several times-myself and with other mechanics) nor come see what is happening for themselves. They have made repeated promises to do so but never do because they are too busy trying to sell more crushers to others. They don't say that in those exact words but what else would it mean when they say that they are really busy getting ready, being at, or gearing down from one show or another. I've had this crusher for over 2 years....That's a lot of time to be able to make time to support a customer. Even if they put the customer off to go do trade shows. I'm not exactly sure what difference it will make anyway....They don't really have anyone there with much crushing experience anyway (other than when they have been around others who use their product or limited experience with demos). Initially they were pointing the finger at my Cat 315. Not the fact that it is really too small for the BF 70 (they are actually the one who recommended that I mount the 70 to the 315) but the fact that, in their experience, they have the most trouble trying to set their attachments up on Cats than any other brand. Ironically I get the same results regardless of which excavator I mount the bucket to ('03 Cat 315CLC or '17 Deere 245GLC). The only good news I have about this is that (based anecdotally on the opinion of the friend who recommended MB to me (very early version BF 120 mounted to a Cat 330), another contractor who I was introduced to by MB (BF 90 mounted to a Deere 450) and from tylermckee above (BF 120 mounted who knows what) the reports on the larger units are that they do not seem have the same issues. BTW, I would love to be wrong, or proven wrong, about this. Not the reports of larger units having more success/less issues but rather that MB could help me figure out why the unit that I bought is not meeting my expectations in durability, production and post-sale support. Expectations that were set, in part, by them. As it relates to the Xcentric I have no clue. I would like to try one but have yet to see one in my area. I can say that the Xcentric ripper does not seem to work as claimed in the limestone that we have in my area. I have talked to someone local who has purchased one (ripper) and he said it works good in sandstone. I'm not sure how much presence/support that Xcentric has in the US anyway. To my knowledge MB has been in the US market the longest and their support/presence leaves a lot to be desired (if that says anything about the others). The other major player (in US anyway) is the Hartl. I've not heard to much good about them either (admittedly all rumors and hear-say) except from Mr. Hartl at Con-Expo. I think that a couple of things (though maybe obvious to some) are worth mentioning here. Salesmen generally say whatever they think will get them a sale (may not apply to all salesman-use your gut instincts and do some homework before you buy). Crushing is not as easy as it looks in videos. There are a plethora of things that will effect production rates and/or costs. Talk to as many people as you can (especially those with crushing experience IN YOUR AREA AND/OR WITH THE MATERIAL YOU ARE TRYING TO CRUSH. Know that any issue a dedicated high HP crusher (stationary or mobile/track mount) may have, or most circumstances that may effect one, will be exponentially more difficult for a relatively low HP crusher bucket to overcome. I hope this helps. Best of luck to you and please report back if you end up getting one or find any info that would contribute to this thread.
I'm hoping to revive this thread. It has been over a year since the last post so hopefully there are more people out there with experience to contribute to the thread. I still have not resolved any of the issues that I have had in the past. I have since purchased a grizzly to process my virgin shot to 10" minus prior to feeding the crusher. I had (2) jobs lined up when I bought it but neither one came to fruition. What I'm saying is that I haven't used the grizzly yet nor have I run the crusher in about a year. I have been stock piling some material at my yard so I may just run some to see what I can learn.
I've been interested in one for site demo jobs we do as there is always some sort of concrete being removed. These jobs may have 60' of curb and gutter or 10K sf of 4" concrete slab to haul off. A crusher bucket however slow would be a better alternative to trucking and dumping. Subscribed to the thread to see if anyone else has more info. DGODGR you going to Conex?
I'm not sure yet.....I'd like to, and will likely plan to, but I have many job starts for spring and if the weather is very mild customers will be chomping at the bit. Further complicating things is that I'm already committed to a dirt bike trip in Baja through 3/2. You?
The wife and I already have rooms booked at MGM and airfare.
It seems a little odd that this thread isn't getting much activity. I would think that there is a large enough membership base that there are quite a few of us that have experience with crusher buckets (and therefore would have something to contribute to this thread). Anybody?
I think the problem is that the cost of the buckets are so high and the production you get out of them is fairly low (at from what I have seen at demos) that many people don’t commit to owning them, and I don’t believe there are many places that rent them…
I happened to come across this post today and just had to register. Ive had multiple compact crushers (red rhino,Komplet,mb, and the Rebel Crusher) that i have owned and used including an Mbl 200 crusher bucket. I had it for less than a year before moving on to another mobile track mounted crusher. It was attached to a cat 299d track loader and then a cat 420e it backhoe. If I would have had a larger excavator at the time I probably would have purchased a bf70 or 90. I crushed mainly concrete/asphalt with it. All in all it worked ok. I shouldn’t have expected so much I guess. It would regularly jam if too large a piece was fed into it. Any Dirt/mud just about nearly stopped production. I was under the impression when talking to the sales rep from mb that i could crush 2-3’ wide 4” thick sidewalks and concrete slabs up to 6” thick. It sounded like the perfect attachment. I could remove 3’ sidewalks and just feed them through the wide crusher bucket (i think it was almost 48” wide) and make base product in our yard or jobsite. After taking delivery, and watching a piece of concrete about the size of an 8” cinder block jam it, i was not very impressed. I read through the manual and found that it was only meant for crushing 6” minus concrete chunks. So basically i had to process the concrete to a 6” minus with a hammer and then it came close to meeting their production rates. Mb was helpful with trying to resolve my issue and kinda kept pointing at my machine as the problem making me think I needed more flow/pressure. Truth is i had the backhoe modified and plumbed by the cat dealer so i know it was hooked up correctly. All in all in the end I do believe i got what i paid for. I would tell anyone else considering purchasing a Crusher bucket to demo one first if possible so that you know what the actual capabilities are of the attachment. They do have their applications in places where there is limited access and very low amounts of material to be processed. But in my opinion, when it comes to being cost and time effective, its hard to beat a dedicated mobile crusher.
Welcome to the Forums Falcon115, glad to have you. Since you've owned a Rebel Crusher how did it perform? The reason I'm asking is I've been kicking around the idea of a small portable crusher to process demo debris (concrete, block and asphalt) on site when we can or crushing at our dump. I like the compactness of the Rebel but like with anything the smaller you go the more you sacrifice production.
The Rebel is what we are currently using for about the last year and a half and i love it compared to the others Ive seen. I can easily transport it and make sellable product with the onboard screening system. I can scalp, crush, remove wire, screen and now stack after attaching hydraulic stacking conveyors to the plant. Its a very well thought out machine that allows you to have a lot of capability without having to support and move around a larger crusher. For us its the perfect size. Ours is set up as a jaw and with about 750 hours on it, I haven’t had much in wear costs other than a few replacement belts/splices. Jaw dies are easily still 75 percent.
Thanks for the info Falcon. Crushed limestone in my area is running $21-25 a ton delivered so the cost of virgin rock is getting expensive enough to start running numbers between hauling off the concrete demo on a job, then turning around and ordering #57's to backfill storm sewer with. It is not a significant number per job but over many the numbers add up. For instance - I am currently bidding a Chik-Fil-A scrape and rebuild. The building slab, footings, sidewalks and drive through lanes are all concrete. About 170 CY's of concrete haul off. On the flip side the storm sewer is HDPE with around 200 tons of #57 limestone backfill. $5,000 worth of virgin stone and $7K in haul off charges. No major money savings on this one job crushing and re-using but 10-20 over a 4 year span adds up.
You are welcome. I didn’t know anything about crushing 5 years ago and was always disappointed at the lack of information regarding compact crushing out there, so im happy to offer what i have learned so far. I had it figured that it was costing us about $22 per ton to haul off concrete and purchase recycled aggregate. With my current compact setup, i can prep and crush/screen concrete to a 3” minus for others for about $7-10 per ton and be profitable. That would be making a 1x3” clean rock and a 1.5” minus base material. I can also set the Rebel jaw to approximately a 1” closed side setting and produce a 1.5” minus in a single pass at about 50 ton per hour. But with crushing, there are lots of variables that can affect production. I do believe though as the cost of transportation and virgin aggregate keep going up, we are going to see alot more of the compact crushers.
Worked on tearing down and crushing up concrete of the old GM fisher body plant in Nj . Used hammers to break up footings and Pulverizers to size for track crushers
Hi Falcon! I'm glad that you posted in this thread. I was very disappointed that there was such a complete lack of crusher bucket knowledge/experience and/or participation in the forum about it. I'm just now seeing it and it's been over a year since you posted it. I found it because I've had more issues with the crusher bucket and am looking for other solutions (which is how I found this). I found that my BF70 does not crush asphalt worth a darn, It's just too soft of a product. If one adds it (in small quantities) to concrete of rock feed material it will crush it but it slows things down. I also wondered if it would do better with asphalt in cold temps but I haven't yet had a chance to try it. I am still on the fence a bit about buying a dedicated crusher. For me the constraints of the initial expense, the mobilizing of a 100k# track mount, and the space it takes to operate it are what have been holding me back. There is also the learning of, and setting up for, a new type of business model, not to mention the potential MSHA (and other regulating bodies) issues. My application is generally the building of a 10 gallon house on a 5 gallon lot. This puts space at a premium. Factor in that most of my work is within a high-end gated golf community (with paved streets), generally requires crushing <1,000 yards (usually to 3" minus) per job, and the crusher bucket (if it worked as advertised) should fit the bill. That being said, I've got about $70k invested in my bucket (including the repairs I've done thus far, and am looking at about $20k more-which is why I'm looking at alternatives) and MB is wanting me to pony up to a bigger unit. I'd still like to try it out but I'm stuck on paying the freight (+/- $4k) to demo a unit when the first one has, in my opinion, failed miserably. I would agree with this but there may still be a somewhat hidden advantage to the smaller unit that could counter the higher production rates of a larger unit. If the Rebel only weighs around 40k#, and is less than 8'-6" wide, the ease of transport would allow one to perform "gorilla warfare" type crushing tactics. One could potentially set up, crush, and then disappear before one fell under the radar of any regulating body. Thus avoiding one of the biggest potential headaches of the crushing business. I have been playing phone tag with RR Eqpt Sales but hope to speak to them directly soon. I certainly like the idea of a unit that only weighs 40k#, and can process several products in a single pass. I could easily get away with only crushing to 3" minus but making other products is attractive too. I'm glad to hear that the Rebel is meeting your expectations. It's interesting to note that almost every Rebel crushing video is of the unit crushing concrete. It sounds like you are also crushing concrete...even though you mention "virgin material" a couple of times in your posts. I generate "virgin material" when I excavate. It is not usually in the form of concrete though. It's rock and since it is not nearly as soft as concrete it can be tougher on machines to crush it. So far (when considering the Rebel for my application) the weight of the machine has given me pause. I wonder if the Rebel will have enough *** behind it to handle the stresses of crushing rock as opposed to concrete, etc. I know that the high silica content of concrete normally goes through wear parts (dies, cheek plates, etc.) faster but my rock has high silica and its hard to boot! Thanks again for your input. I would love to be able to speak with you in further detail if your open to it.
I thought I'd add a few crusher bucket pictures. This first one is from a demo job we did a while back in which I used my breaker and crusher bucket to turn the foundation and brick walls into fill material which we used on-site. The second picture is from a job where we hammered and dug about 1,800 yards off of a cliff face for a house foundation. The picture shows the crushed product by the loader and the feed material is at the back by the trackhoe. These last (2) pictures are of the same job but the remote location that we were crushing at was shut down to us. We ended up hauling some of the virgin spoils back to the site and crushing it there. The site had NO flat ground other than the narrow paved dead end street that the site was accessed from. This is where the crusher bucket was really in it's element. The picture below is the 245 with the crusher bucket attached crushing the spoils. In the foreground one can see part of the self-erecting crane that was parked on the site that arrived way too early. The GC started renting it early because he thought that he would lose the opportunity to rent it. It was just an obstacle for us as it was never even used on the job. It simply sat in our way for a while. This last picture is of the same job as above. It shows the 245 on the "to be crushed pile" and the 315 is placing the crushed material as foundation backfill. Once it was all said and done the crawl space was about 35' deep! The front wall was about a 12' high wall like that of a walk out basement. The high wall at the front of the foundation required a layer of geo-grid every 2' of backfill...even though we were using structural fill and the foundation was placed directly on the bedrock. Installing lifts of fill (315 would switch between bucket and ho-pac to install the lifts), and messing with the geo-grid, allowed the crusher bucket to keep up with the process. With all the complications presented by this job it was probably one of, if not the most, challenging jobs we've ever done. It took (3) different stages of dig/pour/backfill at each stage. As it turns out it was about a $200k dig-out (for a single family house!).
While we're talking about small/compact crushers, does anyone have experience with compact scalper screens?
I'm not exactly sure what a compact (or even normal size for that matter) scalper screen is. I currently have an MB s14 screening bucket on demo. Haven't been able to use it yet due to hydraulic connection issues. I should be able to get it going soon though as I now have the parts required (at least I think I do). The S14 is a trommel screen though. They sent it to me with (2) different screen sizes (1" and 3").
I have not seen a crusher bucket around here. I will keep my eyes peeled. There is a large demo contractor just down the street. I did some work for them several years ago. I ran excavators with a hammer, and a crusher/snipper to get the rebar out of reinforced beams and piling. The cleaned concrete went into an onsite crusher plant. I don't know what happened to it after that.
I have used one for the last 18 years. when new, it would chew right through a Jersey barrier. Tons of re fabrication at 10 years as it has held up through many inexperienced operators. Although it is not what it used to be, she still crushes. Had the pumps rebuilt (always do both) and replace the bearings (always both sides). I did find a place to get the belts a lot cheaper. I've had the threaded rods with the eye made local so I keep these things in stock. When new, I could crush 18 heaping dump truck loads a day with it. She's still crushing. We had it on an old Kato 1880 HD. when that got to weak, we added a motor dedicated to run the crusher. Now it is on a case cx330. Added a valve and it runs off of the left track pressure when crushing. Real old school scrap yard stuff. I would buy it again. I use a skeleton bucket with a built in vibrator to sift out the dirt on a link belt . The re bar has never been an issue in the crusher but the dirt slows things down and can cause it to jam. Through the years, i have completed my 20 acre yard two foot thick of crushed concrete as well as selling base material to the local construction companies. They dump their concrete for free and I had all of the base I needed. Labor pulls the re bar out of the crushed material.
Which crusher bucket was it?
Which crusher bucket (make and model) are you using? Bought 18 years ago?....Branded as EcoCrusher and sold buy Larry Guiberson?
It's an MB I believe. Pretty simple design. Mine runs on a rocker plate. The replaceable pads are made of manganese. When ever I change a belt, i crush a few and re adjust the belt and repeat a couple of times. All of the supports have broke so we have done some modifications to it and fabricated all new supports. The connection plate with the pin ears cracks as well so some added gussets to strengthen that. The permanent cutting edge has ripped apart as well but I replaced and lined the bucket with more cat cutting edges. Like I said, real back woods scrap yard stuff. what ever plate steel is around, that's what we use. Lots of fabricating to hold this thing together through the years but like I said, inexperienced operator abuse has caused most of it and the amount of concrete we've shoved through this thing. As long as I grease the bearings a couple of times a day and replace the rubber block when worn, she holds up. The bearings are a bit expensive ( I want to say around 3-4 thousand) but all in all, I definitely got my money out of her. I believe it is a MB 120.4 they make different sizes but i think the .4 means mine is a 4. I just looked it up. some design changes on the new ones and mine came with teeth but i think they are pretty much the same.