New cage design for Pioneer pumps
In response to the quarrying and mining sectors’ concerns over pump and engine damage in situ, Pioneer Pump have come up with a solution to protect their customers’ pumpsets, reduce repair costs and increase equipment longevity.
Based on the company’s original ‘Rock & Rain’ protection, consisting of a painted carbon steel roof over both the engine and the pump, the new design aims to provide added protection to the sides of the pumpset.
The design is based on a single bolted cage area around the suction pool and two doors on each side of the pumpset, providing easy access to the pump and engine via a simple locking system. Each door has a bolt that can be secured with a padlock to ensure the doors are properly fixed to the frame and that neither the pump nor the engine are exposed to external voluntary or involuntary damage.
Equipment damage on site occurs in various forms, including as a result of torrential rain and falling rocks; contact with other machines; and theft or vandalism. While the original roof design only protected the top part of the pump, the new bars and grids are giving the sides of the pumpset extra protection from the above threats.
The only part which Pioneer Pump have not provided added protection to is the back end of the pumpset. The Caterpillar-supplied engines already have protective stone guards and angle grills and, after careful analysis, Pioneer’s technical design team decided that a cage around the rear of the engine would not provide necessary added value to the pumpset’s safety.
Tom Nicholson, Pioneer Pump’s UK and Ireland sales manager, said: ‘We aim to constantly design efficient and innovative concepts which are both practical and useful to our growing number of customers in the quarrying and mining industries. The primary objective in many of today’s mines and quarries is driving down costs. With Pioneer’s new cage design, we believe that our customers will notice a significant change in their total maintenance and repair costs.’
