Modern Mining May 2017

PRODUCT News

New Potain tower crane for Malian gold mine A gold mine in Mali was so pleased with the perfor- mance of – and support for – its on-site Potain tower crane that it has replaced it with another Potain unit. With the de-rating of the mine’s Potain MD830 crane due to its age, local distributor SA French is sup- plying the new PotainMCT205 tower crane for general maintenance and repair duty on the remote mine site. SA French Sales Manager Louw Smit says that tech- nical and after-market support are considered critical

A Potain tower crane is being supplied by SA French to a mine in Mali.

for customers, and even more so for those who operate on remote sites in Africa. “Significantly, SA French has been recognised as an Elite Dealer by Potain of France, which means a guarantee of 80 % availability of spare parts on first call, and it is this level of customer centric focus that has ensured the success of Potain cranes in Africa,” he says. “We dismantled the crane for our customer in November last year, and the brand new Potain MCT205 model is being supplied as a permanent installation. The load curve on this unit is well-suited to the mine’s needs on this site.” The crane will be erected in a configuration that includes a 65 m jib, a 59,4 m hook height, a 17,6 m counter jib and reusable fixing angles. Its lifting capacity is over 6 tonnes at 25 m. “The crane will be erected to a hook height of about 40 m and then telescoped to its final height,” says Smit. “The standard erection will take three days and tele- scoping it to the final height will take another two days.” Among the advanced features of this Potain model is the 60LVF25 hoist winch that includes a new power control function. “While the normal starting power on this tower crane is 62 kVA, the advantage of this function is that the kVA requirements can be lowered to 38 kVA if there is not sufficient power available on the mine,” he says. Smit emphasises that this lower power supply has no effect on the slewing or trolley function of the tower crane, but only reduces the hoisting speed. Louw Smit, SA French, tel (+27 11) 822-8782 Mobile app for Pitram now available A new mobile app, Pitram Connect, offering Pitram clients access to a detailed, up to date overview of their mine’s data on their smartphones and tablets has been launched by MICROMINE. The app is available on the App Store for iPhone (iOS10 and above) and on Google Play for Android phones (6.0 Marshmallow and above). “Clients are insisting on more information about their data and want to be able to view that information whenever and wherever they want,” says MICROMINE Product Strategy Manager Gareth Dean “We created the Pitram Connect mobile app to assist all mining business units including production, maintenance, technical services and management to con- nect them with their mine and give them valuable insights into their data.” The app has all the latest functionality of modern smartphones to create a smooth, efficient and responsive user experience. Users can easily navigate between the different views – performance, equipment, locations and personnel screens – via easy to use icons. The PitramConnect mobile app can be used by any Pitram client who has Pitram 4.8 and the PRIS module. Pitram Restful Integration Services (PRIS) allows third party software applications to submit and retrieve Pitram data without needing direct access to the database. MICROMINE, tel (+27 87) 150-7580, website: www.micromine.com

May 2017  MODERN MINING  55