Hello, I was looking for a cheap concrete mixer for a while because: A. I live about 60 miles from the nearest concrete plant. B. The projects I need to pour are not accessible to a heavy concrete truck. C. I have a lot of projects that are too big to mix by hand, but too small for a minimize 6 yard order from our concrete plant. D. I save $$ by making my own 3-2-1 mix with a dump trailer load of 3/4 crushed stone and sand in bulk. That way I only have to buy bags of portland at the box store. When a friend accidentally bought two JCT concrete mixers online, I had the opportunity to buy of of them, so I did. Like most of these gray market attachments from China, they leave a lot to be desired, but for a tenth of the price of a reputable brand, I figured it was worth the gamble. Here's my feedback for better/worse. The take way is, the attachment works and I'm glad I bought it, but left me scratching my head wondering why they designed it the way they did. My only guess is, these were prototypes of some kind, and they weren't fully flushed out. First thing, was the dump shoot (giggidy). The stroke on the slide plate cylinder was greater than the slide plate they provided. So when fully closed it went beyond the hole leaving a significant opening for concrete to seep out. This is a problem for two reasons: 1. When you are dumping the concrete you typically can't see the bottom of the attachment so you have to rely on the hard stop of the cylinder stroke to know when it's closed. 2. Concrete all over the cylinder rod is going to wear out the cylinder seal prematurely. So I cut up a chunk of steel and bent it the best I could to seal up the remaining hole. It actually works really well, and doesn't leak at all. Problem solved!
Next was the upper chain sprocket. My buddy warned me, that his upper chain sprocket walked off the splined shaft, chewing up the shaft in the process. So I took a look at mine and sure enough, there is no bolt holding the upper sprocket onto the motor's splined shaft?!?! The lower/larger sprocket does have a retaining bolt. Good excuse to fire up the lathe and make a heavy duty washer with a tight fit.
Next was the hoses and the general shape of the bucket. See how close the bucket comes to the frame of my cat skid steer. Your machine may vary a little, but 90 degree couplers are a must so you don't smash the couplers into the valve block... dumb design, but workable with the right hoses and couplers. Also, regarding the design and probably the biggest operational issue with this bucket... the concrete gets lodged in the corners of the bucket. On the side with the valve block, the concrete will wedge on the bottom side of the square housing that is seated inside the mixer (blue arrows above). The best workaround while mixing a batch is to add water to the corners liberally, and make sure the concrete in the corners is really loose to prevent it from packing. Even doing this, you will have to take a shovel and move the packed material to the center.
My last gripe, is the grate on the top of the mixer. If your not careful this thing can go all the way backward and smash your cab windshield. You see here, I used a bungie to keep it over center and hold it up while I scrapped the corners out while mixing up a fresh batch. I need to make hard stop to prevent this. As far as electrical, I figured this is one of those attachments that you'll use a bunch and then loan it out to friends who want to do the same thing. For that reason, I didn't wire it to my 14 pin Caterpillar machine. Instead I bought a generic controller that I can be used on any machine with a cigarette light power plug. I bought this one from Skid Steer Genius SG-DSC-100 and it worked great.
I've used the attachment 3 times now and I'm definitely glad I bought it, knowing I'd have to put some hobby machine work into it. It's a really heavy built mixer, with what appears to be a good motor and valve block. Just no parts or instructions. The only other thing I'd like to do to this attachment is add a 6" flexible hose to the opening of the shoot to help steer the concrete into whereever I'm pouring. Happy pouring! Thanks for reading!
Nice write up on a a cheap chinese attachment. I agree these attachments have their place as long as the buyer understands what they are buying. For mobile concrete mixing for grouting manholes and pouring inverts is a concrete mixer bolted on the rear of our dump trailer. Dump a CY or 2 of sand in the front, slide the pallet of cement behind the mixer and we have a plastic tote we can pressurize for water. Works pretty well and we made a pintle hitch fork attachment to move it around with a skid steer.