The real rockstar carries a real warranty, and when properly executed, has the potential to revolutionise customer relationships. It not only instils trust and reliability but also differentiates a company from its competitors in the crowded market. One such example of a robust warranty is Metso and Pilot Crushtec’s five-year or 10,000 hour EPS warranty on its equipment, including the standout Lokotrack® LT120™ crusher.

“A warranty is much more than just a promise – it’s a demonstration of a company’s confidence in its products, and for us at Pilot Crushtec it is also a testament to the product’s durability and our commitment to stand by the equipment’s performance,” says Francois Marais, Sales and Marketing Director at this leading supplier of crushing and screening equipment.

“Take the Metso Lokotrack LT120 crusher as an example,” he says. “The assurance of a significant warranty such as the one we provide gives customers the peace of mind they need to invest in the product and use it to its fullest potential.”

The Lokotrack® LT120™, a mobile jaw crusher specially designed for aggregate production, has become the go-to choice for mining and quarrying applications. Built to last and designed for efficiency, the LT120™ provides high capacity crushing in an easily transportable form. However, while its features are impressive, it is the warranty that truly makes the difference.

Pilot Crushtec’s EPS warranty covers a span of five years or 10,000 hours of operation, whichever comes first. Marais says that this level of support is unparalleled in the industry, setting Pilot Crushtec apart from the competition.

“In a sector where downtime can result in substantial financial losses, this warranty’s importance cannot be overstated,” Marais continues.

This extended warranty reflects Pilot Crushtec’s confidence in their product’s quality, reliability and longevity. It shows the company’s belief in the LT120™’s design, the robustness of the Nordberg® C120™ crushing unit and the efficiency of the engine powering the crusher. It also demonstrates the company’s commitment to their customers’ success and their willingness to stand behind their products.

“With this comprehensive warranty, customers can purchase and operate the Lokotrack® LT120™ with peace of mind. It assures that should anything go wrong within the warranty period, Pilot Crushtec will be there to assist, reducing downtime and ensuring the continuation of operations,” he says. This assurance helps build a strong relationship between Pilot Crushtec and its customers, fostering long term loyalty and customer satisfaction.

In conclusion, the power of a robust warranty should not be underestimated. It not only showcases a company’s confidence in its products but also its commitment to customer satisfaction.

“In the case of Pilot Crushtec and its Lokotrack® LT120 crusher, the five-year or 10,000-hour EPS warranty is a significant differentiator, setting a new industry standard for support and assurance. It is not just about selling a product – it is about providing a service, a promise, and ultimately, peace of mind,” Marais concludes.

While the quotation for an item of equipment reflects its upfront price, it says nothing about the history, experience, product quality and service infrastructure required to sustain optimal production levels for the customer.

“Sustainable and reliable production is at the heart of any crushing operation, and this is what customers are really paying for when they purchase capital equipment,” says Francois Marais, Sales and Marketing Director at Pilot Crushtec. “For this reason, the numbers that matter are those that reflect a supply partner’s ability to help customers meet their vital deliverables.”

Marais highlights that Pilot Crushtec has spent 33 years building a reputation for its quality of product and its outstanding service levels. Its engineering prowess has already seen over 300 Pilot Crushtec modular plants placed into operation with customers, with over 2,000 mobile crushers, screens and conveyors sold and commissioned.

“Other numbers that matter include the 170 modular cone crushers and the 200 modular jaw crushers that we have sold into the market,” he explains. “We estimate that our equipment has to date processed about 5 billion tonnes of material – in around 1,000 different applications and processes.”

He notes that, all too often, equipment purchases are made purely based on capital pricing. Down the line, he says, it may be realised that the necessary technical assistance, experience or parts are not readily available to support the equipment. Pilot Crushtec has made a strategic philosophy of its customer commitment, by investing heavily and continuously in service infrastructure, spares and wear parts and continuous training of its people. 

“For instance, we train, develop and retain the skills necessary to keep customers’ equipment up and running – to avoid costly downtime that could threaten their contracts and reputations,” he says. “This includes our 15 full time service technicians, who travel a million kilometres a year to see customers and deliver quality support.”

Underpinning these superior levels of service – which are available 24/7 365 days a year – is the company’s parts and aftermarket infrastructure, which is similarly always open for business. This starts with a large stockholding of around 93,000 items, including about 2,500 wear parts alone. There are 20 dedicated parts personnel to efficiently manage this valuable resource, dispatching 6,788 parts on average every month.

“These numbers reflect the real value that we deliver to our customers and should be fundamental factors taken into account when any quotations are considered,” says Marais. “While the procurement function for equipment is often incentivised to save a little money upfront in a capital purchase, this can create unintended consequences for buyers when production is jeopardised.”

Amid an evolving market landscape, customers in southern Africa are increasingly turning to larger mobile crushers and hybrid solutions, observes Francois Marais, Sales and Marketing Director at Pilot Crushtec.  

In the past three to four years, says Marais, there has been a noticeable preference for bigger mobile crushers such as Metso Outotec’s Lokotrack LT120 jaw crusher and the Lokotrack LT300HP cone crusher. 

“At the centre of this trend is the changing face of the contracting sector. Instead of the traditional three to five year contracts, most of the projects coming to market are barely longer than six months,” explains Marais. 

Contractors, he says, are therefore turning to larger mobile crushers to enable them to execute these shorter contracts quite quickly so that they can then move on to the next project. This allows them to increase the volume of work within a short space of time.

“In addition, larger crushing equipment allows contractors to minimise the number of machines that they have to mobilise on site. Having less kit to move between sites translates into reduced transport costs and quick setup on the next job,” he explains. 

With operating costs in mind, contractors in southern Africa are also increasingly seeing value in dual-powered crushing solutions. With their ability to have both electricity and diesel as power sources, hybrid solutions provide customers with the best of both worlds – significant fuel savings and a marked reduction in carbon (CO₂) emissions.

“Significant cost reduction is achieved when customers can connect their mobile crushers to the grid or to the mine’s own renewable energy sources,” says Marais. “Contractors running these machines have seen a massive reduction in their cost per tonne of material produced.”

To provide context, a South African contractor running two Lokotrack E-models has seen a massive 30% fuel saving by switching to hybrid units. As a result, the company is converting its entire fleet to Metso Outotec dual-powered units.

With data being the new currency for crushing and screening businesses, telematics constitute an invaluable tool for gaining a competitive edge and remain one step ahead in tough economic times. 

To meet the growing demand for valuable operational data, Pilot Crushtec now offers the recently upgraded version of Metso Outotec Metrics, an innovative cloud-based tool for real-time monitoring of Lokotrack mobile crushers and screens.

“The new system moves from the traditional satellite feed to a GSM signal infrastructure, thus offering significantly better connectivity and optimisation benefits to customers’ crushing processes. Other features include CO₂ tracking for sustainability benefits, 24/7 access to real-time data, a maintenance module, and critical dashboards for utilisation and geolocation,” concludes Marais.

Crushing equipment specialist Pilot Crushtec has several products that are ideal for the recycling of glass. While many of the company’s overseas customers have recognised this and are using Pilot Crushtec machines very successfully to recycle glass, the local market for this application has not grown at the same pace.

One of the reasons for the slower progress in glass recycling locally is simply the fact that South Africa does not have a strong recycling culture, says Charl Marais, Sales Manager South Africa at Pilot Crushtec. “Compared to European countries and also Australasia, South Africa is lagging. The problem is exacerbated by a lack of legislative support for recycling, particularly the recycling of glass.”

Marais notes that one potentially large market for recycled glass is road building. “Recycled glass can be used for road construction and this has been pioneered in the Nordic countries, the US and Australia,” he says. “We would love to see this success emulated in South Africa but the problem is that our relevant road construction standards – the COTO Standard Specifications for Road and Bridge Works – do not allow for its use.”

He cites the case of a road upgrade in the state of Victoria in Australia. “This was a ‘green’ project designed to use recycled materials to the fullest extent possible,” he says. “The road contains recycled glass from 190 million glass bottles, which might otherwise have found their way into landfills. The road aggregate containing recycled glass was supplied by one of Pilot Crushtec’s Australian customers.”

Marais says that there are many other applications apart from road building where recycled glass can be used.

“Recycled glass is a very versatile material,” he comments. “For example, it can serve as a sand substitute in sand blasting and water filtering applications and can also be used in decorative concrete and in the building of artificial sports tracks and golf bunkers. Safety is not compromised when crushed glass is used to replace sand, as the glass crushing process gives the crushed glass a ‘sub-angular’, which means there are no sharp edges.”

Marais does point out though that recycled glass is not always competitive with sand on cost. “Sand is a plentiful natural resource and, to compound the problem, much of the sand supplied in South Africa is sourced illegally and priced accordingly.”

Pilot Crushtec’s entry-level machine for glass recycling is the ROMPI bottle breaker, which is hand-fed and can handle around 1 500 bottles an hour. The crushed glass is deposited into 30 litre plastic containers. The ROMPI is designed to reclaim valuable space during transportation or storage by reducing the volume of glass waste by up to 80 % and it also eliminates the safety risks associated with handling empty bottles during the crushing process.

“The ROMPI is selling well and we have about 25 of these units in the field,” says Marais. “They’re perfect for small community entrepreneurs. For example, we have one customer in Soweto who collects bottles, crushes them and then sells the crushed product to a big glass manufacturer.”

For more demanding applications where high volumes are involved, Pilot Crushtec can offer the BR0605 horizontal shaft impactor and the VS100 and VS250 VS200 vertical shaft impactors, which can crush down to 0.5 mm -1 mm. One typical large-scale application is to be found in Gqeberha where a Pilot Crushtec VSI is being used to crush rejected windscreens down to a filter sand.

On the prospects for glass recycling in South Africa, Abelho says Pilot Crushtec is determined to grow the market. “We believe the benefits of glass recycling, especially from an environmental perspective, are huge,” he says. “We have the ideal machines to make it an economic proposition and our task now is to get this message out into the marketplace.”

With its focus on product quality, responsive service and high stockholding, Pilot Crushtec has continued to grow in Africa by responding rapidly to customers’ crushing and screening needs with reliable solutions.

Whether the operational pressure is on mine production or project start-up time, there is seldom any time to lose when a mining customer in Africa needs a crushing solution, according to Pilot Crushtec Africa Sales Manager Wayne Warren. Manufacturing lead times and logistical delays – where equipment may need transporting across borders to remote areas – can often frustrate customers in the mining sector.

“A recent contract in Zambia showed the value that we bring to customers’ operations by being quick off the mark with the right equipment,” says Warren. “A customer contacted us to discuss their urgent need for a crushing solution, and within a month they could push the button on site and begin operations with a Pilot Crushtec plant.”

This was despite the equipment taking two weeks on the road to reach the site, he notes. With Pilot Crushtec’s strategy of prioritising its large stockholding, it was also able to recently assist another African mining operation with a full modular plant solution at short notice.

“In fact, the initial enquiry from this company was for mobile crushers – but the application was better suited to a modular format,” he says. “We were able to discuss the options with the customer, and they decided to follow our recommendations, which proved even more cost effective for them.”

He explains that Pilot Crushtec had both the mobile and the modular options available in stock, so was able to supply without delay. It is not unusual for this kind of equipment to require a lead time of several months for manufacture, assembly, delivery and commissioning, he says.

There has also been significant uptake of Pilot Crushtec crushing solutions in Africa by mining companies based in Asia, says Warren. While many of these have used crushing equipment that comes at a lower capital cost, a growing number are turning to Pilot Crushtec for its equipment quality, uptime, spares availability, service backup and warranty.

Among the offerings that have attracted customers has been a five-year or 10,000 hour extended protection service (EPS) warranty on major Metso Outotec components – quite unusual for OEMs operating in this demanding environment, he notes.

“Customers find that our equipment also retains its resale value very well – which considerably safeguards their upfront investment,” he says. He notes that a Namibian customer has also recently leveraged the longevity of their Metso Outotec crushing equipment when converting from mobile to modular plants.  

“They simply moved the Metso Outotec equipment from the previous mobile configuration, and installed it on the new modular plant,” he explains. “This augmented the additional Metso Outotec crusher that was purchased for the new plant, saving considerably on capex while not compromising reliability.”

“Pilot Crushtec has been operating in Africa for more than two decades, so this operating terrain is very familiar to us,” says Francois Marais, Sales and Marketing Director at Pilot Crushtec. “Our reputation is solid, and for the past seven years we have also marketed the highly regarded Metso Outotec brand. Known for being robust and reliable, Metso Outotec crushers have been the preferred choice for mines around Africa for many decades.”

Pilot Crushtec International’s standing as a leading supplier of crushing and screening solutions has received a global endorsement following the 2022 Distributor of the Year Award from Metso Outotec, ranking the company as the best performing Metso Outotec dealer in Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA).

Adam Benn, Director, Capital Sales, North EMEA, Russia & CIS and Southern Africa at Metso Outotec, says the selection criteria considered the full spectrum of what it takes to be a successful distributor, not only from a capital sales perspective, but more importantly the execution of customer service initiatives.

“The award is recognition for all-round business performance, covering not only financial performance, but also customer service by delivering on a number of specific initiatives including customer training events, new product launches, marketing campaigns and technical competence development, to name a few,” says Benn.

Francois Marais, Sales & Marketing Director at Pilot Crushtec, says the award demonstrates the company’s commitment to the success of its customers. “For us, this award signifies that our efforts to help our customers achieve their contractual obligations and ensure sustainable business operations are being recognised at the highest level,” says Marais.

Through its aftermarket regime, Pilot Crushtec places a huge emphasis on customer satisfaction. Testimony to the relentless focus on aftersales service, says Marais, are the over 93 000 individual items in its parts inventory and over 2 500 individual wear items. On a monthly basis, the company despatches an average of 6 788 items from its warehouse and its technicians drive more than a million kilometres a year.

Commenting on what made Pilot Crushtec stand out in 2022, Benn says despite the challenging business environment in southern Africa, Pilot Crushtec achieved impressive growth in all aspects of the business. This includes sales of both mobile and stationary equipment as well as the continuous development of service and support capabilities. 

“In particular, Pilot Crushtec excelled at being a key contributor to many ‘best practice’ as well as product and service development initiatives, ensuring that the Metso Outotec offering not only remains relevant today, but is ready for tomorrow’s customer needs,” says Benn.

The same view is echoed by Juha Yli-Petays, SVP, Global Distribution Management at Metso Outotec, who says Pilot Crushtec has over the years put customer satisfaction at the centre of its business model. “Since taking over the distributorship in 2016, Pilot Crushtec also demonstrated total commitment to the Metso Outotec brand. With a wide market coverage, the company has a deep understanding of local customer needs,” concludes Yli-Petays.

The Mangosuthu University of Technology (MUT) in KwaZulu-Natal bestowed an Employer Excellence award on Pilot Crushtec for the practical support it gives to engineering students. 

The award was accepted at an MUT awards dinner at Durban’s International Conference Centre last year, according to Tania Tarr, director of human resources and organisational development at Pilot Crushtec. It was in recognition of the many MUT students who had spent time at Pilot Crushtec to fulfil the practical requirements of their National Diploma.

“For over a dozen years, we have brought mechanical and electrical engineering students into our facilities from Universities of Technology around South Africa,” says Tarr. “We have made it a priority in our HR strategy, as these practical phases of the diploma are compulsory – so students cannot graduate without them.”

The company has had almost 70 students pass through their practical phases at its Jet Park facilities in Gauteng over the past thirteen  years. The diplomas require them to complete one practical phase over six months in a workshop environment. This phase involves mainly hands-on work that they do independently. There is also a requirement for a second practical phase that students must undertake in an engineering design environment. This typically needs more personal interaction between Pilot Crushtec people and the students.

She explains that the programme plays an important role in developing Pilot Crushtec’s talent pipeline, and is also a deliberate effort to foster skills development and transformation in the engineering and mining sector as a whole. 

“By the time these engineering students are required to undergo the practical phases, they have invested themselves completely in their academic journey,” says Tarr. “It is tragic to see so many of them struggling to find placement at a company to complete these compulsory stages – without which they cannot graduate.”

About 10 of the best graduates were permanently employed by Pilot Crushtec, having proved themselves at a stage when the company was looking to fill specific positions. She mentions that one of the graduates even went on to become best salesman of the year. 

“A good indication of the quality of these graduates and our nurturing process is that some find their way into our demanding Support Link customer service area,” she says. “This can only be achieved after developing an in-depth understanding of our products’ mechanics, electronics, performance and maintenance.”

She highlights the importance of working experience to add real value to students’ theoretical training. This includes building the right attitudes and approaches in the workplace, alongside the practical skills. Pilot Crushtec engages its whole team to guide, train and support graduates during their practical phases. 

“As and when we have the requirement, we can offer employment to the most outstanding graduates,” she concludes. “This ensures that we sustain our legendary after-sales service while helping create a productive future for the leaders of tomorrow.”

In the highly competitive world of mobile coal crushing, Pilot Crushtec’s DoppiaTrac DR400 is a triumph of local design and engineering, with a decade of success in the field.

“We designed the DR400 from the ground up to give us the flexibility to produce a truly great crushing solution,” says Jorge Abelho, director technical support at Pilot Crushtec. “It has proved itself through its combination of throughput, reliability and economy.”

Indeed, it is Africa’s only locally manufactured, fully mobile double-roll crusher – capable of averaging production rates from 300 to 350 tonnes per hour and reaching 400 tonnes per hour. Its ability to reduce the generation of fines is thanks to the double-roll crusher. While a horizontal shaft impact crusher creates more coal fines due to impact energy, the double-roll crusher forces material through a constant gap.

“The crusher uses just enough energy to break the material down to the size of the gap,” explains Pilot Crushtec sales engineer Ben Armitage. “The DR400 generates less than 5% of 0 to 6 mm fines, compared to around 12% created by impact crushers – depending on coal hardness and crushing ratios.”

The DR400 boasts a large hopper that is readily fed by loaders or excavators. To increase the average production rate, the unit can be interlocked as part of a crushing train. Connected with a Metso LT106 jaw crusher, the two units can communicate to synchronise the feed-rate. This optimises throughput by automatically adjusting the rate of material moving between the machines. The on-board hydraulic rock breaker on the Metso LT106 also allows oversize material to be quickly broken, avoiding blockages and preventing downtime.

Crushing efficiency is enhanced by feeding material into the crushing chamber at exactly the same speed that the drums are spinning. This minimises attrition and friction, even at high throughput rates.

“The safety features on the DR400 ensure that it is compliant with demanding safety protocols applied by mining companies,” says Armitage. “These include full guarding around all moving parts, access points, nip points and crushing points – as well as pull cords and emergency stops to quickly isolate the unit when necessary.”

He explains that the efficient Volvo engine delivers the lowest kW per tonne of any mobile double-roll crusher working in the coal sector. Depending on coal characteristics, the engine’s 160 kW output can convert to a ratio of just 0.4 kW per tonne.

“The fuel consumption is also a significant factor for operators, and this crusher can run on as little as 17 litres per hour,” he says. “This is achieved with a hydraulic load sensing system and an optimised crusher chamber design, which reduce the power needed to crush the coal.”

The quality and simplicity of the DR400 is demonstrated by the fact that over 25 of these machines are currently in operation around South Africa – one of which exceeds 22,000 hours of operation. Pilot Crushtec supports the DR400 through its legendary service levels, massive stock holding and unrivalled after-market offerings.

Pilot Crushtec has enjoyed considerable success with its Generac mobile tower lights since introducing them to the South African market more than a decade ago. The tower lights have found favour with customers across a range of industries, particularly mining and construction, and units are now operating throughout the southern African region, as far north as the DRC.

“Pilot Crushtec, of course, is best known for its comprehensive range of crushing and screening solutions,” says Fernando Abelho, export manager at the company. “We introduced the tower lights as a diversification from our main product lines and we’ve never regretted the decision. We’ve notched up truly impressive sales, many of them repeat orders from very satisfied customers.”

Abelho cites the case of a leading civils, mining and drilling contracting company which bought its first units about four years ago after having been disappointed in the performance of a competitor brand. “The latest order from this particular customer has resulted in the company now having 27 Generac machines in its fleet, many of them operating in remote areas within our region under very tough conditions where they’ve proved their reliability and durability,” he says.

When it decided to add tower lights to its product range, Pilot Crushtec concluded a partnering agreement with Tower Light Srl, headquartered near Milan in Italy, one of Europe’s most successful tower light manufacturers. This company has since been acquired by US-based Generac but Pilot Crushtec is still supplied from the Italian factory.

“The quality for which Tower Light Srl was renowned has continued under Generac which has further developed what was already an outstanding product range,” says Abelho. “The Generac diesel-powered tower light is a truly premium product which is very compact, ultra-safe to use and extremely economic to operate. The attention to detail can be seen everywhere in the machine. The electrical wiring, for example, is all fully sleeved and neatly organised while the all-in-one control panel has been developed by Generac specifically for use in light towers. In addition, all the units come with liquid containment tanks to prevent environmental contamination.”

While Generac has a very extensive range of tower lights, Pilot Crushtec focuses on a single model, the VTevo, available in two variants, one equipped with a Kubota water-cooled engine and the other with a Yanmar air-cooled engine. Standard features on both machines include an earth spike, a 4 kg fire extinguisher and the necessary switchgear to allow connection to a mains electrical supply when available. A low-speed, single axis towing trailer allows a high degree of mobility on site.

“The two variants both offer 4 x 320 W energy-saving LED floodlights, able to illuminate an area of up to 4 500 m²,” says Abelho. “The VTevo-Kubota, however, has some additional features that the VTevo-Yanmar lacks. These include a day/night sensor and a GTL-01 controller which provides a programmable stop/start, maintenance alarms and additional safety and protection features. 

“We find that some customers prefer the lower spec VTevo-Yanmar as it is more competitively priced and they feel they don’t need any high-tech features. Many others though opt for the VTevo-Kubota. They find the programmable stop/start in particular to be indispensable and a great time-saver.”

Other noteworthy features of the VTevo that Abelho points to are its use of a telescopic vertical raise mast (with 8 m maximum height), which is safer than alternative designs; 340 degrees of mast rotation; two side doors to the engine compartment for ease of maintenance; and forklift pockets on all sides to facilitate handling. He adds that the machines have a silenced canopy for ultra-quiet operation.

Finally, Abelho also stresses the energy saving aspects of the VTevo. “The G4 LEDs used are industry-leading and have a life expectancy of 50 000 hours. They allow up to 220 hours of runtime on a single tank of fuel. Their efficiency is such that they can save up to 75 % of the fuel that traditional towers equipped with metal halide lights use, at the same reducing carbon emissions by up to 10 tonnes per year. We believe that the VTevo is the most eco-friendly lighting tower ever created.”

In today’s market customers have to maximise their return on investment to stay competitive, and companies like Pilot Crushtec partner closely with customers to ensure equipment will continue to produce at the lowest cost per ton. This is according to company sales manager Charl Marais who says Pilot Crushtec, together with Metso Outotec, recently delivered and installed a world first upgrade to older Metso Outotec mobile crushing equipment.

“In doing this we created an opportunity to breathe new life into older machines in a way never done before in the industry,” he enthuses. “In this particular case the upgrade, which was done on site, was to a Lokotrack® LT300HP™ cone crusher with a belt feeder, which has now been upgraded to include a vibrating grizzly feeder. This upgrade significantly increases production capacity and decreases wear on the cone crusher.”

Migrating to the TK feeder option on Metso Outotec Lokotrack® LT300HP™ cone crushers assists in maximising productivity, increasing throughput and reducing costs per tonne for several of Pilot Crushtec’s mining and aggregate producing customers. 

Marais says these upgrades are particularly exciting for Pilot Crushtec as it is the first time this type of upgrade has been conducted within the international Metso Outotec community.

“The majority of Lokotrack® LT300HP™ cone crushers we have in the field use a belt feeder,” he explains. “However, applications changes due to market demands and customer expectations resulted in our working with customers to take their equipment to the next level.”

The Lokotrack® LT300HP™ – an efficient and flexible mobile cone crusher for secondary and tertiary stage crushing – has always been available with either of the two feeder options. The TK feeder includes the advantage of a vibrating pan feeder with a grizzly. Local customers have historically opted for the belt feeder, largely due to the lower upfront capital cost of this option. 

A belt fed cone crusher comes with a feed hopper at the back of the machine. Material from an excavator feed is received and directed onto the belt conveyor, which then carries the material to the cone crushing chamber. 

With a belt feeder, the cone crusher is fed with a high proportion of fine material. This adds to the load in the crushing chamber but does not contribute to the high value output that the crusher produces. In contrast, the vibrating feeder and grizzly bars in the TK feeder allow the fine material in the feed to bypass the crusher and go straight to the stockpile or further in the process. 

“Bypassing the fines and only crushing material that needs to be crushed increases your throughput,” says Marais. “A cone crusher is a volumetric machine by nature, and by taking out fines, you create more crushing volume in the chamber. For instance, if you bypass 20% of fines in your feed material, your production rate will increase by 20%.”

Pilot Crushtec has been able to assist several customers to upgrade their existing Lokotrack® LT300HP™ cone crushers with TK feeders. A mid-tier miner has already gone the TK feeder route for two of its units operating at two different sites. A further unit has just been commissioned for another customer running a Lokotrack® LT300HP™ cone crusher in an aggregate operation. 

Marais highlights other benefits of the TK feeder, including reduced wear. Limiting the amount of fine material that reports to the crushing chamber increases the life of wear items, particularly crusher liners. This also reduces the machine’s power draw as the cone crusher’s closed side settings are maintained, translating into lower cost per tonne of material produced. 

“As customers seek increased efficiencies and ways to reduce their bottom-line costs, we believe the trend towards upgrading machines as opposed to replacements will gain traction in the next few years,” concludes Marais. “Pilot Crushtec is committed to working closely with customers to find the best possible solution for their operations.”