NARROW-VEIN & LOW-PROFILE
Aramine Co-President, Marc Melkonian, with the Energy Module EM224 at bauma 2025
in 1994, and since then they haven’ t looked back – setting up in addition to the previous businesses a successful reman offering for equipment second life.
But arguably the most notable development was its evolution into becoming an OEM in its own right in 2006 with the launch of its own underground loader, the L130D. Since then, Aramine has managed to carve out a very successful market in the OEM space, especially in narrow-vein mining.
Its main strength has been in loaders and trucks and, in 2016, it was an early mover into green powertrains with the L140B.
The latest addition to its battery-electric lineup is the L440B Mining Loader, which is powered by its Energy Module EM224.
The first L440B is already fully operational with its trial phase having been completed in 2024.“ In the development of the L440B, we initially took all of our electrical technology, and installed it on the base frame of our L350D machine – this was the prototype,” Mark Melkonian, Co- President, says.“ In tandem with that testing of electrical capability of this size of unit, we also then designed a completely new machine, because our aim was not just to convert a diesel machine, but to design a fully-electric loader from the ground up for the purpose of electric operation.”
He continues:“ To make the most optimised electric machine, you need to be able to calculate the best ratio of stored energy, available voltage and delivered power; and once you have that you will know the maximum possible weight for the machine as well as the possible speed and tramming capacity. So, at the end, we produced the L440B to be as competitive in the market as possible to the equivalent diesel machine.”
The L440B is designed with the same philosophy as the smaller L140B Mining Loader – especially in relation to Aramine’ s unique Quick Replacement System( QRS) for battery swapping, which is the most compact in the market. It is self centering,
self-locking and doesn’ t require any regular maintenance.
The first L440B is operating in Canada today, while after bauma 2025 the second unit went to work in Europe. Melkonian added:“ Beyond that, the L440B order book has several additional machines which are earmarked for delivery globally. It has a lot of potential in the market due to its 4.6 t capacity – where there is a lot of demand and, apart from our machine, there are no other commercially available options in this size class.”
As with the L140B, the charger is onboard with the battery module, including an independent charging cooler, so the mine has no need for expensive fixed external charging infrastructure – the battery requires a four-hour charge at 400 V on any 32 A socket. The customer just needs to have two battery modules for one loader to be able to achieve continuous operation. The batteries are 224 kW lithium iron phosphate with one battery module able to operate for five years of continuous use.
Melkonian says Aramine has a longterm plan to make larger machines than the L440B, for which more advanced design work will start in 2026 but will involve a whole new design technology and battery chemistry suited to that size class.
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