Hi All, Im a new member here and looking for some advice/opinions on mini excavator buckets and what the general consensus is in the market place. Im looking at buying a mini excavator soon and the manufacture (Caterpillar) offer's some of their digging buckets with holes in the rear of the profile. Apparently this is to help remove the sticky/muddy dirt that can be hard to remove. Does anyone here have buckets with holes in the rear profile and if so, what are your thoughts/experience with these? Is this also a common thing in the market place as I have not seen this bucket offered from any other manufacture. I live in Melbourne, Australia so if there are any members on here that are near by - please feel free to chime in. I have also attached below a picture of the bucket for reference.
It's a common practice on smaller buckets in this part of the US, we get a lot of wet sticky material and the holes will help break the suction when the material packs in the bucket.
the holes are good like lantraxco said it prevents suction and helps get sticky material out of the bucket what size machine are you looking at getting into caterpillarchad?
So if I was given the option of buckets with hole vs buckets without holes, would you guys recommend the buckets with holes? Would the holes prompt faster wear than usual? From the research I have done, these buckets are not the preferred choice in melbourne. Looking at a cat 301.7D size machine. Thanks
the hole shouldnt affect the wear life of a bucket and if i did id question the buckets ability to dig a hole the build material of a bucket affects its service life the hole is all to do with the material you are digging in a machine that size maybe a hole is unnoticeable 301 is a handy size have you considered a bucket manufacturer instead of an oem bucket?
I'd like to stick to all cat buckets if I am going to buy a cat machine. But I am open to looking at other bucket suppliers. How would these buckets go if I were to dig up dry sandy soil. Would having the holes be unsuitable? It wouldn't make sense to have a bucket for sticky material and another for dry soil.
the sand would still pack into the bucket and shouldnt come out the hole but if you are worried about product going through the hole buy a bucket without holes i have seen great life span from both ech and ei engineering buckets in machines under 5t and have seen oem buckets break as buckets is not there main sales item they dont put as much effort into them and just arent built the same as a bucket manufacturer
I'm not sure as holes are the main factor of material sticking into the bucket. I always though that it was the relation of how wide a bucket was to how deep the bucket was. For instance digging with a 12" on a full size tlb is terrible, switch to a 24" and the problem goes away. When I have problems with buckets packing its usually because one of two things. First off when I'm digging in the topsoil and clay mix that when wet imitates chocolate cake batter, and the other is when the bucket temp is below freezing but the ground isn't froze yet. Somehow I don't believe that 2 holes are going to help much at all in the later situation, and only marginally in the first one. I wouldn't be cat loyal on my buckets either, but I'd be paying attention to workmanship and the availability of the teeth that they use. If cat makes the bucket, the cat dealer is close and stocks the teeth that's cool. But if they should use some weird have to order teeth, id buy something that was easier supported. Oh, and if you ever have to bail water, a bucket with holes is going to be a pita...
Even on a small machine a 12" bucket is useless in damp sticky soil. I learned a long time ago, from repairing field tile, put the 24" on and leave it. Both of the buckets for my Bobcat 709 backhoe have holes, 1 on the 12", 3 on the 24". Never had a problem with material falling through them. I wouldn't worry about it. Ed
This is a common thing. Most our customers require to make the holes like this, only quite a few don't like this. This won't affect the life of a bucket. Besides, if want your bucket could work longer, you'd better to have 3 buckets, one for GP, one for Rock, one is for Mud. If you're looking for someone who manufacture the buckets from china, we'd love to help. Thanks.
mate with the hole in the back of the bucket now i know ECH dosent put the hole in the back of there bucket we do it for our small buckets but it really comes down to the customer. but what you need to becareful of with the hole is it is a wear ponit but in your size excavator mate i would not worrie about it too much just find a bucket on the market place that has a good warranty. but mate you can have a look at what we can offer we got a lot of attachments in use in melb area mate. you can find us on machines4u and ebay and other places.
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