Quote Originally Posted by bandit67 View Post
Jim, this would tell me that the new B owners are in a similar boat as us older B owners in that the new QA is proprietary, and thus, would require Kubota-only or owner customized attachments.

The question is how much does getting off the machine to deal with the pins create a problem for you (keep in mind a true skid steer QA or even the new B50 QA means you need to get off the machine). I think the only skid steer QA option for the older B series is still the ATI setup. One potential problem with that, which is why I stuck with the pin-type QA, is the significant additional weight of the skid steer QA setup & attachments, impacting FEL capacity.

The one slight advantage to the pin-type QA is that you can purchase any pin-on attachments that fit the B series loaders, which are offered by quite a few aftermarket companies. Not as big a selection and possible cost savings as the true skid steer QA attachments, but the key is the weight savings with this setup. And a lot of the lighter duty attachments for our B series are still cheaper than the heavier duty units built for skid steer QA equipment.
I've been using the pin-on style QA on my B3200 for a year or so now. I like it - it's world's better than no QA - which is what I had on the BX when I had that. I just think it could be better.

I typically carry a small hammer on the tractor to tap the pins in - or out - because depending on the implement - I can't always just pull them out. I also have to usually grab the attachment and move it around a bit to get the pins to line up and go in. Again - not a huge deal - but it is a pain the you know what.

Messicks mentioned that the new B50 QA is narrower - one of the things I noticed from that picture that I posted is that the lock-in pins - or whatever you call them - appear to be located almost in line with the FEL arms. When I bought my B3200 - I looked extensively at all the other skid steer style QA options that were out there - and one of the major faults with them in my opinion - was that they all seemed to use a common "core" if you want to call it that - to which they just welded on whatever brackets they needed to adapt to each different manufacturers FEL. What this meant is that none of them were really optimal for any FEL they applied to.

Every aftermarket option I looked at both used a **** of a lot more steel than they really needed AND moved the attachments quite a distance out from the pivot point at the end of the FEL - so they were attacking the load capacity from both sides - adding more weight - and increasing the leverage arm on the FEL.

When I looked into building one myself - one of the major problems I saw - was that in order for the lock-in pins (or whatever they called) - to align with the standard location for the hole in the bottom of the SSQA plate - those pins need to be almost in line with the FEL arms on the LA504 - so there is a somewhat tricky packaging problem to solve if you want to keep the weight down and keep the pivot point as close as possible to end of the FEL arms.

The aftermarket options just use a bunch of steel to solve this. Not optimal in my opinion.

The other issue was cost - the Kubota pin-on style QA was drastically cheaper than the SSQA option from ATI - and the ATI solution needed a bucket from them too. The Kubota attachments are relatively affordable - at least in comparison to ATI.

The other benefit is - it is POSSIBLE to setup a skid steer QA style with some sort of electric or hydraulic option to lock the pins in - whereas it's pretty much impossible to do that with the Kubota pin-on style QA.

So all of this is why I'm very curious to get a look at this new B50 and see what the QA looks like. I have some more attachments I would like to buy - and I'm pretty sure I could unload my existing Kubota pin-on QA and attachments relatively easily (or modify them) - so if this new B50 looks like it works well - and fits on my LA504 - I would think seriously about moving to that.