Hallam company Supreme Organic Soils, located 36km southeast of Melbourne, brings in topsoil and makes up a compost blend which all goes through the Precisionscreen 10? x 5? Super Reclaimer.
?The feed goes through the screen in question ? which has done 25,000 hours ? the material goes through there, it goes through 8mm piano wires and the final product is sold to and picked up by landscape gardeners and wholesale nurseries,? Folino explained. ?I?ve been a Precisionscreen customer for 20 years. We?ve had quite a few machines but this particular one?s done an amazing lot of hours.?
Supreme Organic Soils has also a Fintec [now Sandvik] QA341 and a couple of stockpilers. One is a Precisionscreen-built stockpiler.
?When you consider the amount of hours and the cubic metres that have gone through it [the Super Reclaimer], it?s a phenomenal machine,? Folino said. ?Under the conditions, like there?s a lot of dust and so forth, for a machine like that to do 25,000 hours, it?s quite fantastic. Other than changing a conveyor belt and wearing parts, the screen deck is still the same as the original.?
Dedicated maintenance
Harold Kerr of Precisionscreen added that the machine has been well maintained with normal oil changes and greasing but it has had no major breakdowns and retains the original screenbox. The only replacement parts have been wearing parts like belts and piano wires. It retains its original motor, a 5-cylinder Deutz motor, and the hydraulic motors are also original.
?Super Reclaimers have a very good, average life span,? Kerr said. ?Compost is quite an aggressive material but to have 25,000 hours on it is pretty awesome. Other machines would be lucky to do about half that.?
This particular Super Reclaimer has run though 1.6 billion revolutions. The box and the screens run at 1000 hours at 80 rpm, and when you multiply the rpm by the hours ? that is how you come to 25,000 hours.
Sources: Supreme Organic Soils, Precisionscreen