Malaga based Mining Equipment Spares were in line to build a niche range of multi-purpose service trucks for the mining industry.

Erceg Mining Trucks (EMT), a special division of Mining Equipment Spares, was established in order to specifically handle the design, development and construction of these custom built trucks. Due to the specialised, totally tailored service that these trucks would be required for, incorporating a Digital Switching System was the only reliable and adaptable system that would be able to carry out specific instructions suited to these particular environments.

With the EMT100 being supplied to some of the world’s largest Mining Industries in Australia such as Dyno Nobel and Orica the Digital System had to be rugged, re-programmable and user friendly.

The Digital Switching Systems have all been individually designed and tested to suit the specific functions and conditions under which these trucks will operate.

We have kept in mind and designed the system to perform, diagnose and protect in these tough mining conditions.

In order to maximise on-site utilisation, our digital system has been modelled and built to combine high reliability with low maintenance.

In order to ensure the vehicle is in “safe” or “mine” mode when it enters a certain area (mine site etc.) the safety requirements are pre-set using the PowerMate. Now when the site is entered there is no risk of the driver failing to set the vehicle to the correct safety settings as the PowerMate will automatically set the truck to these safety specifications.

Other examples:

Oil transport vehicles having to enter a safe mode.

Solution:

When the truck enters a mine site the PowerMate will read the on-board GPS and pick up the co-ordinates to automatically activate “safe/mine mode” when the vehicle enters a pre-set geo-fence. The PowerMate can do anything from turning on beacons, limiting the speed of the vehicle, ensuring head lights are turned on or off to tracking and retarding various components to ensure the risk of explosion is reduced as greatly as possible.   When the vehicle enters the Geo fence the vehicle will automatically be returned to “road mode”. No time is wasted and risk of human error in forgetting to enter mine mode or setting the vehicle it incorrectly is removed entirely.

Outcome:

No time is wasted and risk of human error in forgetting to enter mine mode or setting the vehicle it incorrectly is removed entirely.

If the driver tips out the content in the tipper and they allow the tipper to go too far and the entire vehicle tips over. This will cause substantial damage to the vehicle as well as the cost associated with the vehicle being off the road for a certain amount of time.

Other applications:

All tilt and angle sensing.

Solution:

When the truck goes to tip the contents of the tipper the PowerMate will track a sensor on the tipper. When the tipper reaches a certain pre-determined angle the PowerMate will alert the driver that he is reaching a critical tipping point if the driver does not stop the tipper then the PowerMate will automatically retard the hydraulics to the tipper when it reaches another pre-determined level to ensure the truck does not tip over, avoiding any damage to the truck and cost involved in repairing the vehicle.

Outcome:

The risk of the truck tipping over is averted and substantial costs are saved.

If the driver unexpectedly leaves the vehicle while it is still moving the vehicle could very possibly cause hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of damage as well as placing everyone on the mine site in danger.

Other examples:

Fatigue monitoring integration – The PowerMate can read the data and if the driver falls asleep and the system fails to wake him the PowerMate can stop the vehicle.

Collision avoidance systems integration – The PowerMate can read the data and if the driver doesn’t take notice of the warnings and an accident is imminent the PowerMate can stop the vehicle.

Solution:

The PowerMate will track various sensors on the vehicle and have certain actions pre-set to occur if an event takes place. So if a door is opened while the vehicle is moving it will automatically stop the truck eliminating it from rolling unmanned into the mine site preventing any potential loss of life and damage to the mine site.

Outcome:

Any potential danger to human life and damage to the mine site and the vehicle is averted.