Bobcat Proprietary 7 PIN Digital Attachment Interface
2 Years ago when I purchased my Bobcat T76 I had NO IDEA about 7 PIN vs. 14 PIN and Digital vs Analog signals for skid steer attachments. As I started to look around at more complex attachments like Firewood Processors and Soil Conditioners I came to the rude awaking this was a real thing and an expensive issue to solve.
Fast forward to a couple months ago when my Halverson HWP-150 got delivered - this is when the 7PIN vs. 14PIN stuff got real. Jason from Jay's Forestry Equipment showed up at our farm with the HWP-150 and associated accessories.
Jay and I got everything unloaded and then he pulled out the wiring and control pods - YUCK! The 2 X 3 Button controllers needed to be zip tied onto the Bobcat T76 joysticks and then the wire had to be routed from the HWP-150 down the loader arm and then back into the cab through a window.
Jay helped me through all this but even on that first day I knew this was not going to work for me.(Way too messy in the cab and the joysticks get hard to use due to the large control boxes) Jay mentioned there is a work around for the wiring and controls through Skid Steer Genius.
Enter The Skid Steer Genius aka Robert Leib
Based on Jay's recommendation I reached out to Skid Steer Genius and between Craig and Rob they pointed me in the right direction to their 7PIN to 14PIN converter. This unit converts the proprietary 7PIN digital Bobcat signal over to a 14PIN analog signal that most attachments use. After some quick guidance from Rob I quickly got the pinouts right and hooked everything up to the Bobcat - now I am processing Firewood with the HWP-150 through the Bobcat joysticks and I not tripping over the rats nest of wires from the Halverson controller. In addition to the controller Rob and Craig also recommend to upgrade my connector for the HWP-150 and I am glad I did - their unit is A LOT more robust and should basically last until I do something wrong to break it!
Here are a couple videos that I did outlining the change over:
Removing the old wires and switch over:
Pinout Setup on the New Connector:
Upgrading and standardizing to 14 PIN with the Skid Steer Genius 7PIN to 14PIN adapter does a couple of important things:
- Gets rid of supplemental wires and controls in your Bobcat cab - IE cleans up the Rat's Nest!
- Allows you to control complex attachments through your Bobcat joysticks rather then use hacked in controls.
- Full flexibility of what attachments you can use - kills the need to buy/rent proprietary Bobcat attachments and accessories.
- No more strange wire routing to get controls and wiring inside your cab.
Thanks to Robert and Skid Steer Genius for helping me transition over to joystick controls for the Halverson HWP-150 in my Bobcat T76.
Links to the products from Skid Steer Genius:
Link to Wiring Cheat Sheet for Halverson HWP-150 Wiring Pinouts for use with Skid Steer Genius 7 Pin Adapter - Rob and I Came Up with this to make it a bit easier to wire things up.
