It goes without saying that the hardworking crushing, conveying, and screening machinery in your material processing operation requires routine maintenance to continue to be reliable and productive. Many quarries and mines may experience decreased profit margins due to a lack of maintenance upkeep. So, to avoid this, what are the dos and don’ts that extend the life expectancy of the equipment? And how often should you be doing them?
Maintaining Rock Crushers
All crushers can be found in quarry operations, more often than not it’s specifically cone and jaw crushers. The first area of wear and tear on most machinery is the feed system. Whether it’s a feeder with an integrated grizzly or one with an independent pre-screen, how the machine is fed contributes to the wear. You must make sure your crusher is level. If a machine is unlevel left to right it will put extra pressure on the components, this may include the feeder, the screens, the crushing chambers, and the conveyor belts. Also be aware that an unlevel machine reduces production and screening efficiency, as the whole area of the machine is not being used correctly and to its full potential.
Dust will cause you problems no matter the piece of equipment, but it can be known to be especially detrimental to crushing plants. Quarries get dusty, so don’t let this cause you engine-overheating problems. Also, take extra care on the filters to avoid dust entering the diesel tank.
The biggest wear part for a crushing plant is the crusher itself, mainly around the circumference of the rotor. If not properly maintained this will compromise the structure of the crusher box.
Maintaining Conveyors
The primary need for conveyors is to keep the product moving, therefore keeping belts in tip-top working order. The belts should not need to be fully changed out unless extreme damage occurs from the inadequate operation of the conveyor system.
A lot of issues can be corrected by carrying out repairs to the belt and adjusting machine components to ensure that the belt is running correctly. However, conveyor belts must be kept clean to prevent material from building up as this will lead to belt damage, as well as dirty return rolls and snubs. The best way to clean conveyor belts is the scraping method, this is the most commonly used in the industry.
Maintaining Screening Equipment
Working screens involves intense vibration of heavy material, which can be somewhat brutal and require a lot of part changes and maintenance. The main concern with screening equipment is regularly replacing screen media. The best practice is to follow the equipment manufacturer’s recommended replacement intervals for screen media this should ensure you avoid malfunctions and downtime.
Here at Omnia Machinery, we offer a wide range of quality used quarry equipment such as Jaw Crushers, Cone Crushers, Impact Crushers, Screeners and Shredders. We offer machinery from leading manufacturers such as Sandvik, Kleemann and McCloskey. As with all of our heavy equipment, each machine is thoroughly inspected, tested and serviced before shipment, ensuring you’re supplied with only the best for your project. Browse our quarry machinery here.