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Trackcrush PV350 VSI Crusher: The Australian-made ‘jewel in the crown’

Precisionscreen

Precisionscreen discusses how its Australian-made Trackcrush PV350 VSI Crusher has positively impacted the quarrying industry.

Crushing equipment is a competitive market within the Australian quarrying industry.

Many manufacturers stake their claim on the quality of their crushing equipment when it comes to these flagship machines, and the same is true for Precisionscreen.

The Brisbane-based company takes great pride in the fact that its equipment is made in Australia at its Wacol headquarters. Yet, for all its equipment, from pugmills to stockpilers and more, one piece of machinery is the “jewel in the crown.”

Precisionscreen’s innovatively designed and Australian-made Trackcrush PV350 VSI Crusher has proven to be the key to success for Australian contractors.

“We’re pretty bloody proud of it, to be honest,” Jonny McMurtry, chief operating officer at Precisionscreen, told Quarry.

According to Precisionscreen, the Trackcrush PV350 VSI Crusher is still considered the largest tracked vertical shaft impact (VSI) crusher produced worldwide and is the only tracked VSI crusher manufactured in Australia.

Precisonscreen has produced the Trackcrush PV350 VSI Crusher or similar versions for more than 20 years after director Harold Kerr first recognised a need for this type of machine in the Australian market.

Precisionscreen began building versions of the tracked-mounted mobile units for Fulton Hogan and Boral in conjunction with Metso and Sandvik.

This process saw Precisionscreen essentially track-mount crushers from both original equipment manufacturers before they went out into the field and became operational.

Eventually, the Brisbane-based company took the process a step further. It developed its own crushing chamber and direct hydraulic drive, which resulted in the Trackcrush PV350 VSI Crusher, which has served contractors for two decades.

The company equipped the Trackcrush PV350 VSI Crusher to withstand the harsh conditions of the Australian quarrying sector. This meant getting the fundamentals right, like including triple-sealed bearings and extra oil coolers to keep the crusher operating in the most demanding conditions in the industry.

“That was essential to optimise the production of the machine,” McMurtry said.

“We know there is a need out there for high-tonnage, high-volume and high-powered machines, and we manufacture to suit that. We recognise Australian conditions and design and manufacture the machines to suit.”

The major difference operators may notice about the Trackcrush PV350 VSI Crusher is its 350-kilowatt direct hydraulic drive on the crusher chamber. This enables the Trackcrush PV350 VSI Crusher to deliver high-capacity production of up to 350tph, depending on the material density and set-up.

The lined spinning rotor can accelerate the material before it is impacted by the crushing chamber, which delivers a highly energised force onto the material. Combining these two factors enables operators to use the Trackcrush PV350 VSI Crusher to shape aggregate, which is often critical to creating construction materials like roadbase.

Other VSI crushers, including ones imported from overseas OEMs, can often be belt and pulley-driven. Other equipment options in this space can focus more on hybrid models, which may not always suit Australian operators’ specialised requirements.

The Trackcrush PV350 VSI Crusher is good for shaping road-based aggregates. Image: Precisionscreen

McMurtry explained to Quarry that the direct hydraulic drive has key advantages compared to other approaches.

“For VSI crushers, a lot of them are belt and pulley driven, which is quite inefficient as there is a lot of slippage, and it is quite an inefficient way for driving these crusher chambers,” he said.

“The benefit of our direct hydraulic crusher drive is it is able to deliver quite a high [amount of] power … it can be sped up or slowed down to suit the operator based on the volumes going through or the shape that they need or the volume of fines that they need.

“The adaptability and the variability as part of the Trackcrush PV350 VSI Crusher as standard makes the other units pale in comparison.”

Since it was introduced over twenty years ago, more than 20 units have entered the Australian quarrying industry.

The Trackcrush PV350 VSI Crusher is popular with contractors and businesses based on Australia’s East Coast, but other units are in Darwin and South Australia.

One of the original Trackcrush PV350 VSI Crushers has stood the test of time and remains in operation today, a testament to the longevity provided by Precisionscreen’s quality manufacturing processes.

Due to the high-velocity speed of the rotor in the Trackcrush PV350 VSI Crusher, contractors have plenty of options. Many have used it to create a premium product for road-related material, but others have used it to work on 7mm-14mm chips, 20mm aggregates and for generating dust or fines.

“It is all about that superior cubicle shape that all the quarrying manufacturers are chasing for their road aggregates. It helps knock off the jagged edges of the stone and gives a real cubic shape,” McMurtry said.

“That high-velocity speed from the rotor can obviously pick up and throw the material quite aggressively … the greatest application is the shaping for the road base aggregates.”

McMurtry said the family-owned and operated company took immense pride and satisfaction in designing and manufacturing the Trackcrush PV350 VSI Crusher for the Australian market.

“We’re obviously proud of all the machines we manufacture but this really would be the jewel in our crown,” McMurtry said. •

For more information, visit precisionscreen.com.au.

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