When Eric LaRoche, general manager of Saratoga Springs, N.Y-based Pompa Brothers, reached out to Samscreen he was in the market for an innovative screening solution since his primary screening and crushing station was dealing with some vexing problems.
According to Samscreen, overall through-put was being reduced by near size material pegging of the 7- x 20-ft. top screening deck’s woven wire panels, slowing down the entire operation. In fact, the problem required an early shut-down of the machine each day so that the screen deck could be cleaned off.
A customer service rep recognized immediately that a self-cleaning MAX Kleen screen could eliminate LaRoche’s pegging issue. A Kleen-D style MAX Kleen with a 1 ¼-in. opening and 6-mm wire was recommended as a one-to-one replacement for the existing woven wire. With a flat, non-woven wire surface, bound only by a few urethane strips, the Kleen-D screen design makes it impossible for rocks to become permanently lodged in the screen openings, noted Samscreen.
Not having worked with self-cleaning screens previously, LaRoche initially installed MAX Kleen panels on the bottom deck of his secondary screening plant and on the upper third of the primary screening plant’s top deck, to test out their effectiveness. The installation on the primary top deck ended up being an excellent side-by-side comparison of MAX Kleen versus woven panels (as seen below).
An additional unexpected benefit was the improvement in material cleanliness. MAX Kleen’s ultra-efficient, fast material stratification produced a clean finished pile the first time through (which had not previously been possible) and sent oversize material to the crusher without small fines contamination.
Taken together, the gains in production efficiency from faster through-put, the elimination of manual screen de-pegging, and no more piles going through the screener twice, allowed LaRoche to nearly double his overall production from the prior year.
Samscreen, www.samscreen.com