What to do when conveyor belts go down

Production comes to a halt when a critical conveyor goes down.

Once offline, operators are in a race against time to find a fix that will get materials moving again throughout their conveying system. But those lost hours – days even, in some cases – are ultimately unrecoverable.

“You never get that back,” says Ryan Wright, sales director at Smiley Monroe. “Once you’ve lost that day, you can never get it back. It’s truly lost.”

Conveyors go down for an assortment of reasons, so preparing for the unexpected puts operators in a position to minimize downtime.

Replacing conveyor belts

For example, when a portable crusher requires a replacement belt, having one on the shelf is a starting point to expedite start-up.

While vulcanization is a traditional splicing method to get a belt back up and running, alternative solutions are available. Smiley Monroe’s Zip Clip replacement conveyor belts are one such option.

Supplied ready to fit and to the exact endless length required – and secured with an easy-to-fit connecting pin – Smiley Monroe says its Zip Clip mechanically fastened replacement conveyor belts maximize uptime by getting operations up and running in less than an hour – with no need to wait on a vulcanizing crew.

“We found that the Zip Clip really took off in the USA with the price of vulcanizing being so high,” says Wright, adding that the cost of a vulcanizing crew can range from $2,000 to $3,000. “The U.S. is obviously a pretty big land mass to cover, so it could take a week to get a belt vulcanized.”

As Wright describes, Smiley Monroe performed a Zip Clip test with a quarry a few years ago and found that its solution saved the operation tens of thousands of dollars.

“It saved a local quarry $35,000 in lost downtime because it wasn’t having to wait on a team coming out, which would take two days to vulcanize the joint,” Wright says. “Because the quarry had the Zip Clip ready to go through his dealer, he was able to get back up and running within a couple of hours and save over $35,000 in lost revenue.”

Another approach

While the setup of all portable operations varies slightly, some utilize overland conveyors to move materials over long distances. Like any conveyor, an overland model that’s down is a problem.

“Usually, these belts are pretty critical when they go down,” says Ryan Grevenstuk, a business unit director at Flexco. “And you can’t always get a vulcanizer.”

Splicing alternatives that can get an operation back up and running promptly are becoming more desirable, Grevenstuk says. That’s where heavy-duty belt fasteners can offer advantages, providing a solution in a pinch.

“A typical quarry may use this on an overland belt, but it is popping up more and more,” Grevenstuk says.

According to Grevenstuk, a conveyor belt can be spliced with a steel cable belt fastener in as few as four hours to deliver a fix that can last anywhere from two to six weeks. That beats vulcanization’s timeline, he adds.

“Just getting the belt strung onto the conveyor can be a challenge,” Grevenstuk says. “A lot of the time [operators] can vulcanize a belt so they can string it on. Now, instead of vulcanizing, they can use half the number of fasteners, get that mounted and then string the belt on.”

Related: How to properly select belt tensioners