Packhouse gets super-sized motor

One of New Zealand’s largest apple packing companies has super-charged its apple sizing/ grading equipment with a drive upgrade.

This packhouse had relied on one gear drive since it was installed on a Compac six-lane Sizer in the late 1990s. However, general wear and tear and a need to work constantly, was putting the gear drive under immense pressure.

With at least two breakdowns due to gear failure during the 2013 season, the decision was made to replace this critical piece of equipment.

“The sizer was required to move more apples at a faster rate, therefore the gear drive was working really hard, and it was just a matter of time before it gave way again,” says Anthony from EQM.

A fruit sizer takes apples across a weighbridge and then sorts/sizes apples into lanes so it’s a critical part of any packhouse

“We assessed the situation and recommended a replacement geardrive from the STM range, which had the same foot print and shaft sizes so that the sizer would not need any engineering modifications to fit it. Also, we could fit a bigger motor and still be well within the gearbox input power ratings.”

An STM AMP 100/2 Inline gearbox fitted with an 11kw motor was specified. With the existing drive still operational this allowed EQM to import the optimum ratio for this situation.

Let your geardrive issues be resolved by EQM’s expertise.