Capital Equipment News September 2018

To meet the height restriction limitations, the cab, cooling package, rear door and diesel tank were removed.

Modifications in detail To meet the height restriction limitations, Pretorius explains that the cab, cooling package, rear door and diesel tank were removed. The load arm pivot was relocated and spacers were put into the load arm cylinders to maintain the correct tipping height requirement of 1 200 mm. “The application is a function called potline basement cleaning. This is part of the reduction process in aluminium production,” explains Pretorius. “This is where the maximum height restriction and remote control come in. The environment is too hot (with molten aluminium directly above), too dusty (alumina powder) and too dangerous (huge amounts of electric current and magnetic fields of up to 500 gauss).” The remote control system, with CAN OPEN communication, was supplied by Hetronic. “We used the CAN signal to run a Parker MC42 CAN controller that allows proportional hydraulic control of the boom, bucket, park brake, engine kill and drive functions as well as input monitoring of engine temp, hydraulic temperature and filter clogging, engine oil and alternator charge,” explains Pretorius. These inputs will trigger warning LEDs

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To meet the height restriction limitations, the overall height of the machine had to be reduced to 850 mm

The load arm pivot was relocated and spacers were put into the load arm cylinders to maintain the correct tipping height requirement of 1 200 mm

The customisation project also entailed the installation of a fully-functional remote control at a maximum range of 100 m

The last major leg of modification saw the cooling system being upgraded to a fully hydraulically- driven cooling fan with a larger vertically orientated radiator, as well as a hydraulic cooler

CAPITAL EQUIPMENT NEWS SEPTEMBER 2018 23