When Kimball Sand Company decided to buy a new conveyor, they chose the longest telescoping conveyor they could find.
The Superior TeleStacker, purchased from Whitney and Son, extends 190 ft. (58 m) This makes it the largest road-portable, telescoping conveyor on the market, according to the manufacturer. The Superior Telestacker TSSA 36 in. by 190 f. (.9 m by 58 m) is rated at 500 tons per hour (453 TPH).
The equipment saves Kimball a lot of money — and fuel.
“[We] were running two 7.5 yd. loaders every day the plant was operating. Each loader was accumulating approximately 2,000 hours of use each year,” said Scott Kimball, plant supervisor of Kimball Sand Company, which is based in Blackstone, Mass. “With that amount of use [we] were replacing the loaders approximately every five years.”
Each loader had a value in excess of $300,000, and Kimball estimated that, factoring in depreciation and fuel costs, each loader was costing $120,000 or more per year to operate.
“[We] now use the loaders half as much as [we] used to, which reflects a 50 percent savings in fuel consumption, operator time, and equipment wear and tear,” Kimball said.
Kimball also said the conveyors help them separate materials. Stationary conveyors put everything in the same stockpile. The Superior TeleStacker conveyors can be programmed to move slowly and constantly to make partially desegregated piles.
The TeleStacker conveyors have a range of arc up to 270 degrees, allowing Kimball to stockpile several different sized products, partially desegregated, in kidney-shaped piles, which hold more product.