Plant Equipment and Hire February 2020 | Page 12

INTERNATIONAL EQUIPMENT NEWS UK rental company goes for green JCB’s electric mini excavator is said to be five times quieter than its diesel counterpart. This, combined with the fact that it does not emit exhaust fumes, makes it suitable for indoor jobs and work on emissions- and noise-sensitive sites. The 19E-1E is available with either three or four lithium-ion battery packs, providing a storage capacity of 15 or 20kWh. And with its battery management system, the machine can deliver a typical full day’s shift for a mini excavator. It comes with an on-board charger with a 110V input for 12-hour recharging and the option of a 230V input for 8-hour recharging. There is also a fast-charge option that enables the excavator to be fully charged in less than 2 hours. UK-based plant equipment rental company A Plant, has invested more than GBP350 000 in ten of JCB’s new 19C-1E electric mini excavators, in response to growing demand for environmentally- friendly construction equipment. Dave Harris, business development director at A Plant says that the company has witnessed significant demand for sustainable customer equipment over the past year. This has therefore become a key focus of the company’s investment strategy. “This year we have invested over GBP4-million in low or zero carbon equipment and are proud to be able to deliver the latest, sustainable options to customers,” he says. Atlas Copco acquires US distributor assets Atlas Copco has acquired the assets of US distributors Accurate Air Engineering and Compressed Air of California. The sister companies are located south of Los Angeles in California and have a sales and service network covering almost the entire state. Together they have 52 employees. “This acquisition will complement our existing footprint in the region,” says Vagner Rego, business area president Compressor Technique. The business acquired from Accurate Air Engineering and Compressed Air of California will operationally become part of the Compressor Technique service division. Russian company Zyfra has developed an automated system to monitor the condition of excavator bucket teeth based on the machine vision BucketControl system. The system is designed to detect the presence or absence of excavator bucket crowns quickly and features functions to alert the operator to the excavator if a crown is lost or ceases to work. This is an application developed jointly by the AI and Mining divisions of Zyfra. The on-board controller acquires images from the camera, processes them using internal software, analyses them and sends a signal to the operator if a crown is lost or ceases to work. The wear of the tooth is also assessed, and when a critical value is reached, a notification is sent to the dispatcher. This data is transmitted to the server in real time. “With the help of machine vision, you can locate a broken tooth immediately and prevent it from getting into the crushing compartment, whose breakdown threatens the company with a loss of up to USD200 000. When mining ore, a broken tooth may cause damage to the bucket, which would entail additional damage worth several million rubles. “Our BucketControl system will ensure a cost reduction of 90% when finding a broken tooth,” says Alexander Smolensky, business development director of Zyfra. The automated system to monitor excavator bucket teeth has been further 10 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2020 AI to track excavator operations Russian company Zyfra has developed an automated system to monitor the condition of excavator bucket teeth. developed to produce Fragmentation – an automated system designed to determine the granulometric composition of crushed rock. This application measures continuously the size of the pieces of rock in the excavator bucket. Correlating that size with the location coordinates yields a performance map of rock which measures the efficiency of rock blasting to balance the cost of blasting against the quarry output. “In contrast to images taken after the blast, the entire depth of exposed rock is analysed. That enables us to increase excavator productivity by up to 3%, minimising the chances of oversized pieces hitting the crushing compartment, making it possible to track the quality of blasting operations and ultimately increase rock removal by up to 10%. Using the system to analyse previous blasting operations will also help determine the number of explosives required for future blast works,” adds Smolensky. www.equipmentandhire.co.za