An innovative screen design eliminates material buildup in a cone for one custom crusher.
provides space for material to build up.
No portable plant is perfect in the eyes of producers, who generally like to run their machines a certain way. If producers all had their way, they’d likely tweak one area of their plant here or completely redesign another part of it there.
Minnesota-based Intex Crushers is no different. Terex Cedarapids equipment has been in Intex’s fleet for years, and the company is satisfied with how its different Cedarapids crushers have performed. There’s always room for improvement, though, regardless of the manufacturer or brand.
Take a Rollercone crusher Intex previously had. One issue Intex had with this crusher was that material sliding down the chute into the cone piled up unevenly on one side of the cone.
“The best practice with a traditional closed-circuit plant is to choke feed your cone,” says Dave Hosch, vice president of Ruffridge-Johnson Equipment, a Minnesota-based Cedarapids dealer. “When you fill all kinds of material in that cone, you get a pileup of material. That material gets backed up the chute.”
In such a scenario, Hosch says the screen is weighted down and sometimes reaches a point in which the chute leading from the screen is literally bouncing off the cone itself.
“Backup of material can be a problem,” he says.
Buildup solution
According to Hosch, a newer Cedarapids plant addresses this closed-circuit plant issue. The portable CRC380XHLS cone-screen plant features a high-lift screen (HLS) system that allows a large head of material to force feed the cone crusher.
“When in operation, that screen hydraulically lifts up into place,” Hosch says. “Now, the chute on your screen not only sits above the cone, but the material is coming off the chute right down into the center of the cone.”
operating height is 19 ft., 3 in.
The ability to choke feed the cone is improved, he adds, and material backup on the chute is no longer an issue.
Intex, one of the largest custom crushers in the Midwest, put a CRC380XHLS into service last spring. And the elimination of material backup on the chute is one of the biggest gains the company has experienced, says Intex CEO Greg Buhl.
“We like the fact that the screen hydraulically raises or lowers for maintenance and that it also gives you more clearance from your chute into your cone,” Buhl says. “Normally, it’s difficult to get enough clearance on a closed-circuit plant. That was a big seller for us.”
Plant maintenance, as Buhl mentioned, is also simpler to perform.
“When it comes time to change the manganese on a cone on a traditional plant, you have to take the chute off of the screen so you can lift the top of the cone off,” Hosch says. “Otherwise, the chute on a traditional plant is in the way.”
But one feature of the CRC380XHLS, the overhead conveyor with a lift port, breaks tradition of this maintenance procedure.
“You don’t have to do disassemble any conveyors,” Hosch says. “You don’t have to do anything to the overhead conveyor.”
The portability of the CRC380XHLS is on par with Intex’s previous Cedarapids model, Buhl says, but the cone-screen does offer some advantages in that area. The hydraulic three-position screen offers a transport height of 14 ft.
“Other plants are probably set up to travel as easily,” says Buhl, whose company specializes in recycling yet also produces sand and gravel. “But now that we have this extra clearance with really minimal setup, that’s a bonus.”
Portability is especially important to Intex because it relies on jobs that take it to different sites. The company runs five crushing spreads in all and is continuously on the move.