The conveyor bridges and bucket wheel excavators used in the world of open-pit mining are some of the largest mobile machines around. When it comes to these giants, the safety of people and materials is a top priority for position and end position monitoring. Up until now, mechanical cam limit switches and absolute encoders were generally used for this purpose. In modernization measures, however, system solutions offer extended functions and additional safety without requiring complex changes to the control software.
Always in the safe zone
Not too far out and not too high up: The bucket wheel of the excavator and the hoist of the conveyor bridge are only allowed to be moved within areas that are mechanically feasible and technically permitted. Moving them outside these areas may lead to risks for staff and damage to the machine. This is where classic solutions using absolute encoders and mechanical levels limit and/or spindle limit switches often reach their own limits. What’s more, they often do not offer the precision and redundancy required for modern safety functions.
Highly available monitoring technology by Hübner Giessen
When working on modernization projects, open-pit mining companies often face the question of how complex, expensive and time-consuming more precision, increased safety and additional functions will be. The integration of a safety PLC, for example, usually requires major, expensive adjustments to the control software. This is where we offer a technically and economically sensible alternative. Our solution monitors and switches positions and end positions as a highly precise and safety-certified approach with no changes to the control software. Thanks to its two-channel design, our U-ONE®-SAFETY-Compact universal encoder system also meets all requirements for redundant safety functions. You can read more about how our innovative encoder technology helps make open-pit mining safer and everything else that our compact system can do in our current case study: “Excavator / Hoist: U-ONE-SAFETY-Compact implements safety functions in open-pit mining even without a safety PLC”