Low maintenance has been cited by a Leeds household waste site as the reason for selecting a PC210LC waste specification excavator from Marubeni-Komatsu.

The site operates a fleet of vehicles to handle a range of household waste, including bricks, concrete, soil and wood. Two of the existing material-handling machines required daily maintenance to prevent overheating and remain operative, and so the operators of the site, LSS Waste Management, approached Marubeni-Komatsu to see how one of its PC210 machines could cope with the environment.

The PC210LC handled the application with the aid of a ‘riddle bucket’ to sort bricks and wood from the soil and rubble.

The dust generated by the operation, which had necessitated daily cleaning of the existing two excavators, did not impact on the performance of the PC210LC in the 300 hours of operation over which the test was conducted.

“After 300 hours we inspected the cooling system on the Komatsu machine and it was very clean compared to our other two excavators based on equivalent use,” says Mark Pritchard, general manager of LSS.

“We haven’t had to clean the Komatsu radiator or the engine filter, unlike one machine where we were cleaning the radiator three times a day. This has significantly reduced our preventative maintenance requirements.”

Kirk Dakin, the operator of the PC210LC, was responsible for maintaining the other machines.

“The external mesh filter on the Komatsu catches a lot of the dirt and prevents it getting into the cooling system,” he says.

“Now it’s just a case of using a soft brush to remove the excess dust – and that takes about 30 seconds.”


Marubeni-Komatsu

www.komatsu.co.uk

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