I've only used the old pound the pins in and out style on a 40 series machine. Owning a machine shop, I've made and modified all kinds of bucket/attachment ears for customers, but I don't have much of an understanding of the different systems. I've never been involved in the "using it" part of the coupler. I just bought an older Komatsu 10 ton machine with a thumb and 24 and 42" buckets that both need a little work and I'd like to build or find and adapt a 60" cleanout bucket. The size of these buckets has me thinking I'll have a hell of a time changing buckets by myself as it lacks a quick change. I've heard the terms quick change, pin grabber, wedge, but I think I'm missing some basic understanding of what is used for what and why. Any thorough rundowns of the ins, outs and what-have-yous of the different quick change systems and which ones might apply to my little machine?
There's a method of changing buckets without pounding the **** out of with a sledgehammer. It takes about 15 minutes top's if you don't want to buy a quick attach.
Pin grabber Wedge coupler Tag coupler
Helpful post above. both machines I operate are a manual wedge style. I call them "slow change", but they work just fine if you are not changing buckets and tools every hour. one of the drawbacks compared to a pin grabber is being able to turn a bucket around. That only comes up every so often, but it can be handy. Here is a guy in a flipped bucket 345 Cat, handing me some drain rock from above. I have used it several times to tunnel under a footing or other things from the near side, tunnel under a fence while preserving it, under a really fancy tulip tree that we needed to save.
Thanks guys! So the pin grabber style is the Cat's ass, but the most expensive and adapting it to my machine that already has a good working PSM thumb would throw off the thumb alignment- Probably doesn't make sense for an old machine like this. The TAG style coupler looks like it would be a big job to rebuild the top of my existing buckets to match. Is this style the same as the Wain Roy style? There's a lot of older discussions on this site about this style being sloppy and maintenance intensive. Seemed majority don't like this style. The wedge style seems like a great way to go, but I have flipped buckets around a few times in the past on my 40 size machine. Certainly not a deal breaker. I really like how it looks like the bucket ears are dirt simple to burn out and weld on- No pin bores! This looks like a straight forward style to copy and build the whole thing. Are there any styles of wedge couplers that allow flipping the bucket? It seems like it wouldn't be hard to design one where the bucket ears were symetrical so it could pick either way.
I have pin grabbers on our 325 and 305, manual pin grabber on the 305E. Don't like the design or operation of the Tag couplers. Majority of the ones I see are worn out and sloppy however the majority of those are either on rental machines or former rental machines. Post some pics of your excavator. Yes a QC adds length to the stick but your thumb may still work, not the way it was designed but could work. Depends on the coupler, the thumb you have and the buckets you are using.
I have used both CAT manual wedge (PITA, needs allen wrench and open end wrench). I also have AIM manual wedge style. They use a saftey pin and a lever bar to overcome a spring to release the bucket.