What’s New THE FINNISH LINE

Normet Canada

Another Finnish mining equipment manufacturer has set up shop in Canada. The latest company to be welcomed to Sudbury, Ont. is Normet Industries Canada, whose Finn parent has manufactured a total of about 1,800 underground utility vehicles to date. It expects to make 2,000 more in 1989. Most of the company’s trackless mining vehicles have been shipped from the company’s plant in Iisalmi, Finland, to mining markets around the world. Canada is the last spot to be filled on the company’s marketing map.

Vehicles available from the company’s broad fleet include: scaling, shotcreting, lift, backfill, fuel supply and materials supply trucks.

All are built around four carriers: the NT 30 (with a 3-tonne payload), NT 60 (6-tonne payload), NT 80 (8-tonne payload) and NT 120 (15.5- tonne payload).

At the company’s opening presentations in Sudbury, in October, President Erkki Ahopelto stressed the company’s willingness to help solve any problems operators may have with regard to production support areas. Considerable interest was expressed in Normet’s cassette-mounted containers which can be interchanged according to the job to be performed and in particular the company’s shotcreting machine. A Robot Grinder

Robots, so prolific in the manufacture of automobiles, have broken into mining markets as well. About 10 robot arms will be at work in Canada by the end of the year, regrinding carbide buttons on all sizes of button bits used in production drilling, according to manufacturer C.M.E. Blasting Mining Equipment of Oakville, Ont.

Three of the robot arms are already at work in Sudbury: one at Secoroc Ltd., one at Kenroc and one at Inco Ltd.’s Stobie mine.

The unit at Stobie is equipped with a Super Diaroc regrinding tool, which rotates the sharpening bit at 26,000 rpms. It is being used to grind carbides 16 mm in diameter on in-the- hole button bits which measure 6 inches in diameter. The machine can be programmed to sharpen any size bit. On the 6 -in bits, about 30 to 45 seconds are required to grind each carbide, C.M.E. reports, or about 10 to 15 minutes per bit when buttons are worn flat to about 50% of the button’s diameter. Grinding time is even shorter on bits with smaller buttons. Based on hand-held experience at Inco, the Super Diaroc tool itself has a life of about 45 to 65 bits. That’s about 855 to 1,235 individual carbides per machine. But by using the robot arm, which maintains constant pressure and rotation, that tool life could potentially increase.

Yankee Boring Supply in Connecticut has been using a C.M.E. robot as well. It reports sharpening 30 bits per day in the 3-in to 4-in range. This compares favorably with 10 to 14 bits per day using a hand-held Diaroc/ Borroc grinder, with a rotation speed of 16,000 rpms. Eliminating Misfires

Bharti Engineering Associates of Sudbury is marketing a blast-monitoring device that collects vibration waveforms from sensors rigidly coupled to the rock within 20 m of a blast.

Signals are sent via a cable to an ibm-compatible laptop computer for analysis. Called the bmx Monitor, this lightweight, self-powered unit is manufactured by Blastronics Pty of Brisbane, Australia. It can be used with either accelerometers or geophones which have a flat frequency response from 10 hz to 2 khz.

The record produced by the monitor gives more than peak particle velocity. The record shows the particle velocity for each hole in the blast. These are superimposed on the actual blast design. With this feature, blasting foremen can easily discern which detonators failed to initiate and can then take steps to eliminate misfirings in the future. The monitor was developed by Blastronics after nearly 10 years of research and on-site blast-monitoring. The Cutting Edge

After testing the system for five years in various underground base metals, gold and uranium mines, Drillex International of Canada has introduced a variable lead lip system for load-haul-dump (lhd) machines.

The lip system, called ni-basin, increases productivity by reducing downtime. This is done by creating a uniform flow of material into the bucket of an lhd as the machine penetrates the muck pile.

The patented shape minimizes wear on the loader drive train and tires, resulting in reduced maintenance time and costs.

The bucket lips are made of a nickel alloy, cast at an angle of 7 below the base plate to protect the underside of the bucket from wear, resulting in longer service life. Wear patterns observed during a 36-month test in an Ontario uranium mine indicate half as much wear compared to conventional lip systems.

The lip can be changed in one working day. Diamond Drill

A new feed frame, a new stand and machine-mounting attachment, and a new control panel are some of the features of two new diamond drills introduced recently by Craelius of Sweden.

The Diamec 252 and 262 machines were designed to replace the earlier 251 and 260 units.

Improved wear resistance has been achieved, according to Craelius, by combining the jaw and jaw-holder in one piece. Hardened wear rings add to the service life of the machines.

The 262 has two reduction gears. The high gear operates in the 550- to 2,200-rpm range with maximum torque of 540 nm. The low gear range is 400 to 1,700 rpm with 700 nm of torque.

The 252, which is intended for smaller rods, operates at speeds of 550 to 2,200 rpm at 570 nm of torque. CIP Screen

A new screen for carbon-in-pulp gold-processing, which provides high- speed, efficient screening, has been introduced by Simplicity, a Lukens company based in Guelph, Ont. The Simplicity nu-z cip Screen features a sealed, watertight design with stainless steel wire cloth or urethane panels.

The screen is basically a vibrating screen with inclined deck powered by an overhead-mounted tow-bearing vibrator unit. Take up rails are sealed and all screen cloth joints are overlapped.

The unit uses a circular screen motion and vibration amplitudes range from 1/32 of an inch to 3/16 of an inch. Operating speed is variable up to a maximum of 3,000 rpms.

A wide range of sizes is available.