All case studies

Subic Bay Freeport Grain Terminal. Changeover of 4B chain and 4B nylon flights to replace competitor's inferior plastic flights and chain. Resolved problems with bending flights, wear issues and failures. Maintenance has been made a lot easier and productivity increased.

Automated Electric & Service beta tested the Encoder-Flex 1024 in a slide gate monitoring application, installing it on both new and retrofit systems in a demanding industrial environment. The encoder delivered stable, accurate performance throughout the trial and was adopted as a reliable long-term solution.

A large flour mill moved to fully automated material handling equipment using Industrial Ethernet infrastructure. They had to meet safety requirements for monitoring belt speed, alignment and bearing temperature on their elevators and conveyors.

Ray-Carroll County Grain Growers needed to increase receiving capacity without shutting down operations. 4B offered a solution using JCC-S low profile elevator buckets allowing closer installation and the addition of 224 buckets per leg. - A 75% capacity increase!

Elevator upgrade at Sun-Rice Australia. Provided engineering, design guidance and component supply with changing old-style fabricated elevator buckets to modern polymer SPS buckets. Elimination of backlegging and chute wear.

Major London port import/export grain terminal had a serious conveyor fire causing substantial damage to the facility. It required a hazard monitoring solution that was ATEX approved, industry 4.0 and industrial IoT compliant to make the investment future proof and expandable.

A malting facility repurposed a grain elevator to transport "green malt" and found that the elevator was not functioning properly. 4B reduced the elevator pulley size and RPM to give the correct discharge, and modified the outlet. Elevator running smoother with less loading on the motor.

Chain conveyor problems solved in major US rice mill. Replaced existing steel-bushed chain and welded flights with 4B Bolt-N-Go chain and bolt-on paddles - enabling fast repairs and less maintenance. Reduced conveyor downtime. Hot work permits no longer required for chain repairs.

Multi-Location Grain Cooperative in the US. Existing stand-alone systems upgraded to fully integrated monitoring solution, using Industrial Ethernet Nodes for remote sensor connectivity; Hazardmon.com for cloud monitoring; and testing tools for 100% verifiability of equipment.

Customer was struggling with their conveyors transporting a corrosive by-product of crude oil processing. The chain was breaking and wearing fast, causing much downtime. 4B heavy duty links with corrosion-resistant pins and circlips improved the conveyor life by at least 50%.

Design for a new elevator handling recycled asphalt planings (RAP). Recommending speed, power requirements, shaft & casing sizes, and component specifications (SPS steel buckets and NBR belting), 4B engineers helped the customer to achieve the desired capacity of 250 tph. 

A North American grain storage facility was concerned that the bolts used to secure the overlap splice section of an elevator leg belt were prone to pull through. 4B offered a solution using Ref70 large diameter elevator bolts in combination with unique oversized oval washers.

Consol Glass were experiencing continuous belt breakages and downtime due elevator repairs and maintenance. 4B came up with a revised retrofit design on the elevator components, including AD400 Nyrim buckets and high quality elevator belting.

Design and complete component supply of a new bucket elevator to handle crushed glass, using AA85TN toughened nylon buckets with good abrasion resistance. Working around several size constraints due to indoor location of elevator and limited space available in the factory.

A potash fertiliser elevator was using solid hardox elevator buckets which were expensive and wearing quickly causing loss of production. 4B solved the problem with wear resistant, self-cleaning Nyrim buckets - fitted with a steel wearband for excellent impact resistance.

Largest UK producer of rape / canola oil recently upgraded their main silo feed elevator to incorporate 4B's advanced anti- static AM Nyrim elevator buckets.

An application of 304 grade stainless non-magnetic elevator bolts in magnet conveyors, used for removing ferrous materials from crushed recycled concrete. Overcoming the problem of standard mild steel bolts being drawn to the fixed magnets and increasing service life.

Coors Brewery had to replace its standalone equipment, which was costly, hard to monitor and leaving the facility at risk of equipment failure. The 4B HotBus system, with alarm outputs and valuable maintenance information, enabled the company to practice preventative maintenance and comply with ATEX requirements.

4B helped a peanut processing facility to overcome problems with product build-up in elevator buckets, reduced elevator capacity and clogged up elevator boots. This was achieved by replacing the existing buckets with vented 4B CC-S Urethane buckets and installing a self-cleaning wing-style pulley.