A senior spokesman for Georgia based heavy industry company McDonough, Greg Hickman quoted that McDonough manufactures auxiliary hydraulic kits (“wet kits”) that are able to operate almost just about any extended attachment for excavators that range anywhere from 8 metric tons to 120 metric tons in size. Hickman indicated that the ‘wet kits’ are capable of channeling the required power that shears and other multi-function processors which generally include crushers and breakers need.

They are available with or without rotating motors which further enhance the ‘operational flexibility’ of attachments. Other attachments that were cited by Hickman that benefits from wet kits include grapples also with or without rotating motors and quick couplers.

The HCT technology that was incorporated into these wet kits is modular in design which basically means that the component is flexible enough to allow additions or subtraction of specific wet kit functions that customer may or may not require. The design of the wet kit and the tech incorporated were not particularly independent he added as “HCT consulted with both excavator manufacturers and attachment developers regularly to ensure that their product was relevant to the industry and excavator operators.

This was a critical success factor towards ensuring that our customers get the best of the kits that are easy to transport, install and operate which deliver optimal performance for the machine and the attachment that the kit was designed. These ‘wet kits’ are 100% mobile and may be installed at project sites without hassle as these kits were in fact based on actual in-house installations that were conducted within the manufacturing facility in McDonough. The company also provides trained product support technicians as an after-sales service element which is more than other such product creators are able to say.

Moving on from HCT, another noteworthy developer attachment manufacturer that deserves a mention in this issue is Geith, the company based in Atlanta based Geith is another prominent manufacturer and developer of excavators and material handler attachments. The focus of Geith during the expo was on a new coupler technology the G4 quick coupler. The coupler according to a senior sale executive Adrian Kelly, the G4 works extremely well with just about any type of excavator rental machine. The coupler according to him was the result of 6 decades of collective experience within the spectrum of the industry.

The G4 has superior durability comparative to other coupler brands, not to mention more productive given the turnaround time required to exchange attachments. The G4 was also designed with the safety of construction workers in mind and therefore is said to be the safest coupling system available in the market. The construct of design of the G4 includes a variable pin center which in essence allows the excavator operator to rapidly swap OEM attachments without much difficulty.

Apart from that, the G4 quick coupler enables buckets to be reversed allowing excavator operators to excavate against flat surfaces such as walls.  The ‘ace element’ about the G4 is the fact that operators are able to change attachments without having to leave the comfort of their cabs.