MAX Plant feeders: Keeping Australian mines moving

From manganese to iron ore and gold, MAX Plant’s feeders give miners greater control over material flow.

For decades, MAX Plant has been a go-to mineral processing partner in the Australian mining industry, delivering tailored solutions to solve the most pressing operational conundrums.

Core fixtures in MAX Plant’s portfolio, the feeder stacker (FS) and belt feeder (BF) ranges have proven their worth in the harshest mining environments, serving as key cogs in bulk material handling value chains.

But MAX Plant doesn’t deploy a solution without ensuring it’s site-ready first.

“We offer customisations to suit the client’s specific requirements,” MAX Plant business development manager Neil McKenna told Australian Mining. “From how they’re powered to whether they’re mobile or skid-mounted, we adapt our feeders to best suit customer needs.”

MAX Plant’s expertise goes beyond product customisation, with support available throughout a machine’s lifecycle. This helps the company stand out from the rest.

“We don’t just supply equipment, we also install and maintain it for our clients,” McKenna said. “And when we mobilise, we train operators on everything they need to know about the machinery.”

The versatile feeder stacker

Available in both track-mounted and skid-mounted variations, MAX Plant’s feeder stackers are specifically designed for production rates up to 800 tonnes per hour. This range includes the FS1200, FS1000 and FS800, with options to suit a range of applications and requirements.

“The feeder stacker units are used for what we call surge capacity, which allows you to control the feed and flow of the material through the crushing plant,” McKenna said.

“We can speed up or slow down the feed coming from the stacker to the rest of the plant. This gives us greater feed control without having surges of material coming through spasmodically.”

So what does a customised feeder stacker look like?

“We might provide extra options to support the machine, like static grizzlies over the feeder hopper, or we could boost hopper capacity,” McKenna said. “We can also adapt the length of the conveyor boom or even remove elements of the feeder stacker completely.

“We want to give our clients something that works for them.”

MAX Plant’s feeder stackers can be either diesel or electric powered, providing up to 185 kilowatts of power.

So how is the feeder stacker currently being used in the Australian mining industry?

“A manganese mining client had more than 100,000 tonnes of oversized material after the crushing and screening process – which is a significant amount,” McKenna said.

“The client used a MAX Plant feeder stacker to feed the material back into their existing primary jaw crusher to be recirculated through the plant. The client wanted a fully mobile unit so they could easily move the machine and feed the jaw from different locations.”

McKenna also explained a popular iron ore application.

“Iron ore miners are using MAX Plant’s feeder stacker for loading trucks and train carriages,” he said. “Once iron ore has been crushed and stockpiled at the mine, clients will feed product from existing stockpiles into the feeder stacker for it then to be fed into truck bodies or train carriages for transportation off site.”

Belt feeders built for scale

Designed for use as a primary or surge feeder in plants, MAX Plant’s belt feeder range provides the same level of customisation – and can be used alongside wheel loaders up to a Caterpillar 988 size.

McKenna said a niche market for MAX Plant’s belt feeders has been to support paste plants.

“Like our FS feeder, the BF feeder has a very wide hopper, which allows it to be fed with very large wheel loaders. This makes it perfect for feeding sand and aggregate into paste plants, which pump concrete material underground to fill mine voids.

“We’ve also supplied BF feeders into gold mines, where clients have used them to feed secondary crushed material into a processing plant. In this case, the feeder would usually be fed by an articulated dump truck.

“The BF feeder is a versatile bit of kit for feeding material into existing operations.”

MAX Plant’s feeder stacker and belt feeder, which have become sought-after solutions in the Australian mining industry, are being further advanced with the advent of remote monitoring.

“We’re integrating PLC (programmable logic controller) controls with our BF and FS systems,” McKenna said.

“This enables a unit to communicate with the main plant control system, which gives site operations greater control of their process plant. The PLC system might tell the feeder to speed up or slow down depending on the desired feed.”

Giving operators greater control over their equipment delivers a better client experience, McKenna said.

“We’re also integrating a control system that monitors feeder performance and provides real-time warnings of anything that’s going wrong. That can be monitored 24–7 by operators or by our service technicians in Perth.” 

This feature appeared in the October issue of Australian Mining magazine.