Tools of the Trade Spring 2021

Cat® Electric Drive 794AC and 798AC
Finning is proud to offer Caterpillar’s latest additions to the mining truck lineup, the electric-drive 794AC and 798AC. Caterpillar’s AC drive line-up features class leading payload capacities of 290 tonnes and 372 tonnes, respectively, for the 794AC and 798AC. Both trucks also feature superior retarding capability with four-corner, oil-cooled disc brakes and dynamic braking for stable handling and fast stopping. When combined with the Caterpillar C175-16 engine with 3,500hp and full integration of the powertrain, the Caterpillar AC drive lineup has been proven by Finning Performance Teams to deliver up to 14 per cent more production over competitive electric drive models.
The strong performance and reliability of the Caterpillar 794AC and 798AC, paired with Finning’s broad product support infrastructure and unmatched service capabilities, provide customers with the lowest cost per tonne electric drive truck solution. Find out how Finning can help you today.

Provix pan, tilt, and zoom (PTZ) cameras allow jumbo and bolter operators to precisely position drills quickly without approaching the face and magnify the camera image remotely
Provix pan, tilt, and zoom (PTZ) cameras allow jumbo and bolter operators to precisely position drills quickly without approaching the face and magnify the camera image remotely
Provix drill camera systems have proven themselves in underground mines world-wide: remote bolting in Canada’s arctic diamond mines, Sudbury’s nickel mines, and gold mines in Canada, Russia, and the USA.
Provix PTZ cameras, designed to perform in rugged underground conditions, can be displayed in-cab or in a safe, remote surface operating station, or sea-can 200’ away. Dual cameras deployed on either side of the boom ensure full-face visibility without any reason to approach. Systems can be configured for network access with simultaneous real-time display for locally manned operations. Red Lake’s operating station is set up in a Kubota for ultimate portability.
Provix builds application-specific video systems providing views needed to do the job productively, safely, and efficiently. Contact Provix for any vision-enhancement requirement.

Looking for a sustainable solution to substantially reducing your energy costs in the mining industry?
Power Guardian Solutions has the technology to not only lower your consumption of diesel fuel and electrical demand by upwards of 30 per cent, but the company also offers power optimization to ensure your equipment is running with cleaner conditioned power. The results of a Power Guardian Conditioning system are lower electrical demand peaks, reduction in fuel consumption, stabilized power output, and lower ampacity demand resulting in cooler operating conditions for all of your motorized equipment. Power Guardian Conditioning Systems also offer industry leading surge protection for your entire operation!
Power Guardian Solutions will evaluate your power consumption with a power quality study and present you with calculated savings and real returns. Utility costs are on the rise – are you operating at optimal power efficiency?

Equipment Corps continues to expand its rental fleet with THERN winches and tuggers
Equipment Corps is a leader in winching and hoisting solutions for the mining and construction industries. They have a reputation as being the company to turn to for specialized equipment others don’t have. They have leveraged their staff to fulfill jobs with unique requirements by building exclusive relationships with vendors like Thern. Their team’s collective years of experience, extensive knowledge of Thern winches, and their unmatched approach to equipment acquisition allows them to meet most winching demands commonly encountered in harsh mining environments.
Equipment Corps offers an ever-expanding fleet of Thern air, electric, and specialty winches ranging in capacity from 500 to 60,000 pounds. With warehouses in Ontario and Newfoundland, they’re able to deliver equipment quickly to any job site in North America. Their inventory is constantly growing so check in regularly to find out what’s new!

Komatsu customers surpass 3B metric tons moved autonomously
Marking another industry first for autonomous haulage, mining companies have now hauled more than three billion metric tons of materials leveraging Komatsu’s FrontRunner Autonomous Haulage System (AHS). Working closely with its customers, Komatsu teams developed the first commercially available autonomous haulage system to help mines move material more efficiently. First deployed in 2008 at CODELCO’s Gabriela Mistral (Gaby) copper mine in Chile, AHS brings together some of the world’s best-selling, ultra-class dump trucks with Modular Mining Systems’ DISPATCH Fleet Management System.
Today’s FrontRunner system operates around the clock, hauling copper, iron ore, oil sands, and coal at 11 customer sites across three continents. At the end of June 2020, there were 251 trucks in operation, with an additional 100 (mainly from installing AHS retrofit kits) planned to deploy within FY2020.

Portable Solar Security
When SOUT32 and BHP needed security gates for several remote locations, they deployed solar-powered Battery Operated Barriers. Designed for use in any environment, the remote-controlled security gates can be used short, or long-term, and with the solar option they are completely self-contained, providing hundreds of cycles each day, 24/7/365.
Battery Operated Barriers are available as a heavy utility gate (HUG) that uses adjustable levelers for setting on any terrain, while the towable utility gate (TUG) is a wheeled version and can be easily wheeled from site to site when needed.
Constructed of steel with ultra-heavy-duty components, Battery Operated Barriers come with a powder-coated reflective tower, reflective arm, urethane coated base, security rings, and an enclosed battery box, and available options include solar panels, keypad/card readers, RFID access, and automatic exit wands.

Haul Heavy Loads Quickly and Safely
The HiVol® Lowboy Trailer, from Philippi-Hagenbuch Inc., hauls the largest, heaviest off-highway mining equipment quickly, easily, and safely. The trailer has a hauling capacity of 300 to up to 2,000 tons for Ultra Class rated equipment, such as drills, loaders, and high-capacity shovels. A rear-load system provides safe, efficient loading and unloading for all sizes of equipment – often in under 20 minutes. Additionally, the ramp is designed to maintain a consistently flat plane with the deck of the trailer, eliminating apex loading and potential damage to the idlers and rollers on tracked equipment.
The HiVol Lowboy Trailer also makes moving large mining equipment less expensive. For example, moving a mining shovel under its own power causes excessive wear on the undercarriage. Because the cost to repair a shovel undercarriage starts around $1.5 million, in most cases the trailer easily pays for itself within the first year.

Canadian tech effectively kills virus
Lind Equipment recently announced that their newly developed Victory UVC LED Decontamination System has been proven to kill the SARS-CoV-2 virus. This is the first Canadian-designed UVC LED system proven effective against the virus that causes COVID-19. The development paves the way for rapid, portable decontamination of shared spaces, such as high traffic work spaces, all at the flick of a switch.
Western University’s ImPaKT lab tested the Markham, Ont., company’s system and found that, at a dose of only 10mJ/cm2, the Apollo UVC LED system killed at least 99.99 per cent of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The system is already being deployed by the Canadian federal government in their workspaces.
Lind’s UVC LED lights can be mounted on a wall, hung from a ceiling, or arranged on panels or stands. They plug into a standard outlet, can be turned on or off instantly and come standard with a 360-degree microwave sensor to protect people who come too close to the UVC light.