I am looking for a manual quick coupler for my old Deere 690ELC. What is a good brand to get? I am going to get a manual pin grabber style. I see a bunch of no name couplers out there but are they any good? Or should I just get a CF Brand? What works for you? Thanks!
we have 2 jrb roto locs...totally LOVE them
jrb is the way to go
i have wain roy xls couplers on my machines and the are great. the do not weaken the break out force at all. watch out for pin grabers you get a little extra reach but i puts a lot more stress on the end of the stick. also wain roy buckets are all interchangeable within their yard class so finding extra buckets is easy. plus any welding shop can convert most regular buckets to wain roy easily. your rig takes a 1/2 yard class i believe.
690's are a 1 yd class excavator. plus with the jrb rotoloc, you change nothing. i have a 690 deere, a 210 hyundai, a 210 case....with the rotolocs, you weld nothing, all machines can use any attachment. no welding, just reach out and grab it
I had a 312 size machine with a Wedge Lock. It worked fine, and was easy to convert to hydraulic if you want to run the lines. RT
The World's Best Coupler www.rototilt.cc The Rototilt is a tilting, continuous rotating, hydraulic quick coupler, that can operate hydraulic attachments! Check it out live a ConExpo!
Re: Coupler Be careful of the no names..JRB is awesome.As is Hendrix,Esco and CF..I have info on all if you need some
Point taken But....all couplers are not created equal. Thanks for the offer, but I have personally visited each one, and have their specs. Without naming names, I can say that one is manufactured in an old tin building with mud floors, and one is manufactured in a state of the art, automated, ergonomic, enviromentally friendly facility with a FMS system where even the paint process is computer controlled. One is designed by hand with a pencil on a drafting board, and one is the result of thousands of hours of FEA engineering and dynamic testing on a 3-story test rig, in an envirolab. Sorry, but Rototilt is definately superior.
depends on your application. to me, the rototilt would be of little, if any value. i don't want to adapt my buckets or attachments to fit one particular coupler. and it's few and far between the occasions i've had to dig around a tile riser as in the video, or write in concrete with a hydraulic breaker.
Move the Tool...NOT the machine I understand that not everyone is ready for Rototilt, but if nothing else...think about how many times you must walk the excavator to get into the "just right" position? Why? With Rototilt, machine placement is not nearly as critical. Why bring a skytrack or loader and a skid steer? With Rototilt, you can unload your materials from the truck with a set of forks. You can backfill as you go. How much labor do you need to keep around for finite digging? How much does one hand laborer cost per year...and the liability? I could go on about fuel usage, utilization, versatility, total cost of ownership, etc., the reasons for Rototilt far exceed the bucket compatibility issue. One more thing...ask OSHA which coupler is superior. Everyone knows that pin grabbers are injuring and killing people!
pros and cons to everything
3 machines Of course you know your job way better than I, but I can tell you that if you described your job in this way to a Swedish entreprenuer, the first thing he would ask is....why 3 machines to do the job of one? (Swedes chime in here). Can I ask...are you an owner/operator? One contractor in Canada has spouted that his undercarriages are lasting 2-3 times longer because he's not always walking the excavator. Think about using a grapple to lay pipe. What about tie-ins, manholes, etc.? I'm just asking you to broaden your mind a little. You can always find more efficient, and productive methods, while decreasing your overall overhead. Don't want to argue, just trying to help. Any Swedes want to comment?
it's just a matter of justifying the need
link no working to see pics of our equipment, operation, go to http://s72.photobucket.com/albums/i182/dayexco/
i just clicked on it...took me right there
Nice family ok, I got it working now. Nice family. By the way, I looked over some of your jobsite photos, and can see where a Rototilt could help....Too many guys in the hole!
To extend the use and production of your exc a coupler like this is the solution. But it can't be forced on somebody that dosen't see the posibilities with it. And everybody dosen't need one. They are expensive, but will be paid back real quick. When in the right jobs.... I will say that apr 90% of all wheelled exc sold here has one. In the size 24 000 pounds and up to 40 000 pounds tracked ones, apr 50% got one.(rotating) The rest got a quick coupler and tilt bucket, rock bucket and maybe a breaker.(at least the two buckets) As said here your machine will do many of the jobs u before used men or wheelloaders to do. Here they even add a tractor trailer to the wheeled exc and then can use them for transport of stuff and masses on the construction sites. But of course, if u only use your exc to loading trucks u don't need it. And if labour cost nearly zero, u can have a guy go around and do the hand work with the shuffle instead.
Vikings Hej there, and thanks for the chime. Would you happen to know a friend of mine in Oslo named Erling Ånesland? My last trip there he took me to the Viking Museum. That was way cool.
Ehh, a little clarification: It lives 1,2 mill people in Oslo. It's 170 km to Oslo from Rena where i live.(not shure how many miles that is, but its 2,5 hours to drive) I bet he is one of the sales guy's, i have probably met him at some of the excibition stands. But i am sorry to say that we only got one rotator, and its up north in the Engineer batalion there. I am not shure if its a rototilt.... In my unit we got tilt buckets and thats enough for our type of work. U know we found america first, and that was in boats like u saw on the museum.
yeah, you left your lutefisk and lefse here, wanna come get em?
One in a million Thanks, and yes, Irling is only one in a million guys, but I thought there might be a chance since he is the master importer for Rototilt in Norway....see www.rototilt.no . One question though, weren't the Vikings lost when they stumbled onto America?:beatsme
Well first of all: The fish belongs in the ocean. (If u didn't know) (Norwegian: Fesken ska vær i havet) I am not a fan of Lutefisk, but soft lefse with butter and shugar is nice. I figured Erling had that job, and i am shure i have discussed rototilts with him. But not so much that i remember him, i meet to many in my job to remeber all. And my brain is tuned to specs and heavy equipment, not persons.(a malfunction some say. ) I demand some tools after a spec, and the logistic guys in the Defence Logistic Organization buy whats cheapest for the State. Well The Vikings sailed west, found land and established a logistic point. They grew corn and had houses, sheep and all. And i am shure they found their way back. They went down to Africa, deep into Russia, Iceland, Greenland, Mediterrainian and England. Where they raided all the nice women in UK.(Norwegian joke; that may be true when looking at whats left)
Turning up at a worksite here in Sweden without a rototilt/tiltrotor would be almost as bad as turning up without a bucket. It just doesnt happen. Today a standard equipped wheeled excavator in Sweden comes with rototilt (In most cases with an intergrated grabber) or equivalent, a digging bucket (sometimes with teeth), a narrow "cable bucket" and a wide grading bucket, a ripper (We call them "tjältand", literlly means "frozen ground tooth" and an asphalt cutting wheel also quite common with pallet forks and in recent years a trailer for transporting backfill etc An excavator today is a multi use machine that can replace several other pieces of equipment.
Quick Coupler Mishap Hydraulic or Manual couplers ..... either way SAFETY FIRST ALWAYS. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6T6oSTjUkRo
http://www.psmcorp.com/ or http://www.cwsindustries.com/ . The pin grabber buckets from CWS are great! No problems whatsoever. PSM's is basically the same, don't know the price difference though. Blake WA
We had a PSM thumb and coupler on our Cat 312C, great stuff. The coupler was hydraulic, awesome feature if you switch buckets alot. I could change buckets in 10 seconds if I didn't have to walk the machine to go grab one.
Cascade, was yours a pin grabber bucket? I can't remember, can't track down a pic of your machine...I like PSM a lot. Especially the thumbs that mount with a pin grabber style QC system. Blake WA
No, it was a wedge lock. No loss of breakout force, that's the wedgelock advantage. I've noticed that the biggest advantage of running pin grabber is that just about any machine can pick up any bucket. Great if you have multiple machines and want to be able to use the same buckets. The thumb and bucket are both stamped Cat, but they are built by PSM. PSM thumbs and buckets look identical, only excepting being the hook ears on the buckets are a little shorter on PSM's buckets. These pictures were taken about a 4 weeks after we bought the machine. The discoloration all over the thumb and bucket is from smacking and tearing trees out of the ground.
Good stuff! Yeah I like the pin grabbers because you can use the bucket backwards...at times it's nice but I don't see it being used a lot. The wedge style I've seen before...when I worked for a rental joint up in Mt. Vernon the Kobelco's we were experimenting with had that style QC.
690 Coupler I can supply you a new JRB manual coupler for $4528
Deeredriver, When we purchased our most recent excavator(07 ZX200LC)we went ahead and had it equipped with a manual quick coupler-pin grabber. The Hitachi rep sold us a Geith bucket along with a Geith coupler. I am very pleased with the purchase and changing buckets takes less than 5 minutes now compared to 20-30 before. We switch from 42" to 24" regularly and it is a nice accessory. The added reach is nicer too. Can't tell that it hurts the breakout force either. Hope this helps! ZAXIS
we run a 52" bucket when pulling our trench box on sanitary sewer lines. 3' spreaders on box, 2-8" walls, we dig with the 52" bucket to within 1' of the pipe invert, pull our box ahead, switch to 30" bucket and dig inside the box for our last cut. this allows us to run our box 1' off the bottom, and save a BUNCH of bedding material per l.f. we have jrb rotoloc couplers, ABSOLUTELY love em!. although, i emailed jrb's customer service on our loader quick coupler to buy parts and got no response
dayexco, That sounds like a smart way to save on bedding, & makes for a better sewer line being in a narrower trench. Does your trench box seem to drag slowly with that tight of a tolerance from OD of trench and OD of box being the same? What size pipe do you normally lay? What type of bedding do you use? We normally lay 8" SDR-35 PVC, but can lay up to 18" with our 30" spreaders. Our box OD is 38" and our trench OD is 42". We bed with 3/4" minus crushed limestone.
with the 52" bucket, you end up with probably a 55" + hole. we deal typically with clay soils here, and unless it is extremely dry, we have no problems pulling it. our bedding material here is a screened or crushed rock with engineers specing a 3/8" - 1" gradiation. i'd say 75% of our sanitary pipe is in the 8-12" range this link takes you to a pic of how we run our box http://s72.photobucket.com/albums/i182/dayexco/work pics/?action=view¤t=miscellaneous049.jpg
dayexco, Thanks for answering back. Looks like a pretty neat and well run operation. Nice work on the large diameter ductile iron with all the mj fittings. Liked the precast manholes too. Sincerely, ZAXIS
We have geith couplers,(pin grabbers) They work great
Bucket Quick Coupler A new Hydr. coupler is only $6,500. I would buy a Hydr. one over a manual one any day. I have Hendrix Quick Couplers and love them. Never had a problem with them. Like any coupler you should check to make sure they have coupled properly each time you change attachements. I don't see why you would want to cut your buckets up to use a quick coupler? I bury a lot a pipe in a year and do it some what like dayexco. DirtMan I have to agree with dayexco. I don't see why you would want to tie up your experienced operator and most expensive machine doing, the little jobs? I always put the new guy on the back fill/pipe placement so he can get some seat time/experience. That machine can back fill, compact, place pipe and misc. other jobs why the main machine is digging the trench and placing pipe. Using the main machine to do the odd jobs will kill your production per day along with driving up your cost for that job. Secondly most times you can not get the main machine to the rear of the trench because of space. A lot of jobs I hardly have enough room for the trench and dirt, let alone moving a machine back and forth. Also moving that machine that much causes more wear on the under carriage. I have the main machine digging the trench, placing pipe, covering with bedding material if needed and moving the Boxes. That is one guy/machine. There is one guy in the trench placing the pipe in the hole, and one guy on the other excavator, unloading pipe/placing pipe along the trench, back filling, and other misc jobs.
Q hitch I had a Hyd Geith hitch, ( you call it a pin grabber ) on my first Atlas rubber duck and it was first class, machines since then have had a Miller Hyd hitch and all have been faultless. I think the important thing here is you say old Deere 690ELC. and I assume ( should never assume) you do not bury metres and metres of pipe a day. You are looking for an easier way to change your buckets when you need to, in which case save yourself $2000 and get a manual hitch. Cant comment on other brands available, but Geith, worth every penny. :IMO
Welcome to Heavy Equipment Forums AtlasRob! :drinkup
I got a quote from USA attachments for a manual coupler to fit my 9020B. Anyone have one of these couplers. The price was like about $2,500.00 pin grabber type.
Thanks for the welcome Countryboy. Sorry it took so long to find you. Great site and plenty of people with good info.:drinkup
Just last summer we switched from JRB hydraulic couplers to Geith Autolock couplers. With the redundant system, no more worries about accidental bucket detachments. I also love the fact that I can use any style bucket now, not just the ones set for OUR machines. Makes rental easier in the busy season! http://www.geith.com
Q hitches The most important thing from my point of view is being able to reverse the buckets, I do it a lot when digging under services, kerb lines etc, so I have to go with pin grabbers ( you've got me doing it now ) Some will say get a wrist but thats another thread already :drinkup.
Not the fastest reply, sorry about that Dirtman. I back up your Rototilt statements anyday! Like Tegian said, don't bother show up on a swedish worksite without one. It's safe to say that 100% of the backhoes and wheeled excavators have a rototilt. 95% of tracked excavators between 10 and 30 tonnes have one (they are somewhat more common in Sweden than in Norway). If you show up on a worksite with a rototilt you are safe, show up with a rototilt with a integrated grab and you are ahead. Dayexco's comment about the video was pretty spot on, it's lame! Dunno why someone hasn't made a better one. Even I can match that guy using a rototilt. And you don't need a rototilt to write a valentines card in the concrete. Obviously if what you do is mostly digging, loading and maybe some craning then you'll be better of without a rototilt. But if you have a rototilt you quickly find yourself doing a lot more than that. You could break them if you wanted to when they first came out 25 years ago but today you can break and bend as much as you want. I've seen people run hammers on them but I wouldn't recommend that. Also the tilt cylinders can take a beating if you bury the thing in rocks but replacing them is about as hard as tying your shoes. For most operators the tilt cylinders would last for 5-10 years, I guess. The rest of the rototilt will outlast the machine. Having the hydraulics done properly is important, they don't consume that much oil. Trying to push to much oil through the rototilt will just have the machine work harder, it can be quite annoying. Also having the machine set up with thumb rollers on top of the joysticks is obviously superior to just having a feed pedal on the floor and some buttons on the joystick to swap the flow to different functions. They are expensive to buy and it's not always easy to make money on new toys. But if you have the extra cash, by all means buy one, they are extremly fun to play with. MKTEF, you must know some good operators that you can film in action going through the whole toolbox, including pallet forks. Some people here, including me, are very enthusiastic about this thing and everynow and then someone has to hijack a thread and rant about rototilts. Sorry about all the noise, hopefully most people here can overlook that.
No apology necessary! I agree that is an old video, and a few more have been done after that. Volvo has a really nice one featuring their EW180 & EW55. Herzog Companies has a nice one on their website featuring their MPM using a Komatsu PC200. American Piledriving's new Robovib actually drives I beams into the ground with theirs, and that's a brutal application, so as you said, it will probably outlast the base machine. Thanks for the support! Oh, and guys, why use a quick coupler to disconnect/reconnect your buckets on backwards, when you could just push a button, and rotate the bucket to any position within 3 seconds?