Hey all, I'm new here. I have a technical question pertaining to bucket and other attachment design. I work at a fab company and my boss has tasked me with researching the standardization (or lack thereof) of buckets industry wide. Having grown up in the seats of various equipment brands I know enough to realize that swapping buckets between OEMs will work but they don't always perform optimally. Then there are those frustrating cases--Bobcat owners!--with an attached implement and you can't even get out of the cab because the boom won't go the whole way down. Other than width and capacity, I've narrowed what I believe to be the most essential dimensions for proper fitment down to the three shown in the image below. The bucket tilt pin height s appear to vary across manufacturers which in turn effect the height to the top of the quick coupler . Brands also have varying ranges of tilt forward/back capacity and are effected by the bucket back angle . Variances in these measurements can effect how well a bucket works with a given machine. In my searching, all I have found as far as standardization is concerned is the quick attach plate connection (I think ISO 24410 ). Are there others? That all said, my questions are these: Are there any rules of thumb that you follow in regards how high you place quick attach plates to your implements? Rules of thumb on the bucket back angle? Have you found a bucket design that works well across all skidsteer brands (and ctls) Any advice/input will save this guy a lot of legwork, and it might become a great resource for this community! Thanks
I am not aware of any specifications there are for the back angle or the height of the attachment plate. If it were me, I would look at the back angle of the major OEM's and the height of the mounting plate and see what variance there is. Note that in some cases, the OEM buckets are made by other attachment OEMs like Virnig, Bradco and so forth. CNH machines (CASE and NH) have pucks that allow you to change how the bucket sits on the ground. Other machines may do that as well. The dirt buckets we buy are the 60 series Virnig buckets. I really like the design, they back drag very well, the inside empties out well. They are heavy duty and hold up under hard digging conditions. I am not aware of a better dirt bucket.
Is this what you are referring to? Are they just basically changing the thickness to adjust the final resting position of the boom? makes sense and seems like a simple enough solution. Not sure how well that would work on a bobcat. There's not much wiggle room before the boom blocks the door from opening.
Yes that is what it does. It's really helpful on the wheeled machines. I run 14X17.5's and sometimes I run 12X16.5. The bucket will still stay flat on the ground as long as I change the puck to the appropriate size, regardless of which tire I run.