Pilot Crushtec recently sold its biggest semi-mobile modular jaw Crusher, the brutish 42 ton Pilot Modular/TRIO MJ3254, to HCI Khusela Coal for use at its Palesa Mine near Bronkhorstspruit.
“Although not the biggest crusher in our range, this is the biggest machine we carry in stock and is the first one of its size sold by Pilot Crushtec in South Africa” says Graham Kleinhans, sales director at Pilot Crushtec.
Kleinhans explained that the jaw crusher, which can handle raw feed material of up to 650 mm in size, is the primary crusher for a plant at the mine and will feed minus 200 mm sized coal into a secondary roller crusher.
Crusher Woking Plant
Palesa Mine engineer Theo Ferreira explained that the reason for the decision to purchase the larger Jaw crusher was to handle the oversized feed material.
“Coal is blasted and a certain percentage of the material is in the size range of 700 mm or more and our plant could not break this oversize material. Our roller crushers can only take material with a maximum feed size of 350 mm so we needed to break it down,” he said.
The throughput of the Pilot Modular/TRIO MJ3254 has also impressed HCI Khusela Coal.
“Our throughput requirement was 600 tons per hour,” explains Ferreira, “but we have found that this machine easily exceeds that and actually goes up to 650 tons per hour, depending on the coal received from the mine. When the blast is finer, the throughput increases.”
Spares availability worried Ferreira when he first heard that this was the first Pilot Modular/TRIO MJ3254 in the country but Pilot Crushtec assured him that in line with its spares stocking policy, all machines introduced in the country are only launched when strategic emergency as well as wear parts required are stocked at its Jet Park factory.
“We looked at other jaw crushers and the prices were all similar, but our biggest issue was availability because we didn’t have that much of a lead time. The Pilot Crushtec machine was immediately available and it was the right size so the choice was simple,” Ferreira explained.
The only modification the Pilot Modular/TRIO MJ3254 needed was to adapt it for the mine’s 525 volt electricity supply but he said this did not affect mine production because a 525V motor was supplied by Pilot Crushtec in less than two weeks.
Installation of the jaw crusher went smoothly because of the Pilot Modular’s simple assembly processes and the only task needed was the construction of a retaining wall behind the primary crusher.
“We commissioned the crusher on June 28, 2010 and I can say that we have had no problems with the crusher itself since then. However, I expect Pilot Crushtec to regularly visit the mine to inspect the crusher to ensure that it operates at optimum performance all the time,” Ferreira said.
To conclude, Kleinhans explained that the sale of some 20 odd jaw crushers over the past 4 years into coal crushing has definitely proved that Pilot Modular jaw crushers offer economical solutions to primary coal crushing requirements.
The Pilot Modular/TRIO MJ3254 jaw crusher sold ready to install, is mounted on a heavy duty skid frame and is equipped with a vibrating grizzly feeder to ensure optimum feed at all times by removing undersized material. It has a hydraulically adjustable jaw crusher which enables it to process large quantities of material.