LJR Forest Products

LJR Stainless Steel Pellet Conveyor Under Pellet Mills

Challenge

“We were looking to put in a more reliable conveyor,” said Lige Moore, plant manager of LJR Forest Products. “We had some conveyors we had built under our pellet mills to convey everything from the pellet mill itself into the cooler, but we were having some problems.

“We have had problems on other conveyors in the past,” he said. The conveyors’ manufacturers had told him their conveyors “were going to move so many cubic feet,” Lige said. “And when the conveyor loaded up, it did not want to handle said volume”—and that with “with a lot more horsepower than the SMART Conveyors™ are using now,” he said.

Solution

Lige contacted BE&E and procured parallel stainless-steel, S-Series SMART Conveyors™ to transfer pellets from the mills to the pellet cooler.

“We saw the [BE&E] advertisement and [how they] don’t ride the chain on the bottom of the conveyor,” he said. “It looked like something we wanted to try out.”

Challenge

“We were looking to put in a more reliable conveyor,” said Lige Moore, plant manager of LJR Forest Products. “We had some conveyors we had built under our pellet mills to convey everything from the pellet mill itself into the cooler, but we were having some problems.

“We have had problems on other conveyors in the past,” he said. The conveyors’ manufacturers had told him their conveyors “were going to move so many cubic feet,” Lige said. “And when the conveyor loaded up, it did not want to handle said volume”—and that with “with a lot more horsepower than the SMART Conveyors™ are using now,” he said.

Result

Lige was so impressed with the machines’ performance that he purchased a third SMART Conveyor™, a 60M unit for receiving fiber. It, too, has proven highly reliable.

“The engineering team was really easy to work with,” Lige said, reflecting on his experience with BE&E. “They just wanted to know how much material we wanted to use, and the volume, and the weight, and how far we were going up with it on the conveyors. They sent us back numbers, and everything looked good to us. They guaranteed it, and so far, everything is still standing strong.”

Of all the SMART Conveyors™ features, Lige appreciates their low power requirements and how easy they are maintain. “If something does go wrong, we’re out, and in an hour or two you can change all the elbows out and all the slide parts. And the low operating cost! I mean, it’s a low-horsepower conveyor that doesn’t have a big starter or a big motor. It’s a lot easier to change a 2- or 5-hp motor than it is a 20- or 40-hp [motor].”

“On a week-to-week basis, there’s a lot of other aspects of the plant I do stress about,” Lige said. “I wake up at night wondering, ‘Did we check that? Are the chains good? Are the paddles bending?’ I don’t really worry about the [BE&E] conveyors. They are one of my bread and butters that I don’t have to stress about.”