Crane manufacturer and refurbishment specialist Condra is deploying telescopic cranes to help a South African chemicals company with the production of large volumes of alcohol for hand sanitisers.
Recently tested and soon to be delivered, Condra’s order for nine double-girder cranes with underslung K-Series hoists will replace eight machines from rival firms and one of its own, all originally supplied in 1987.
“Condra won the replacement order because the customer considered Condra’s machine to have performed the best over the past 33 years,” a company spokesperson says.
Each unit features a telescopic boom to enable a single crane to service pumps in separate but adjacent bays, allowing the retrieval of pumps to the principal workshop area for attention by the crane after the boom has retracted.
“The Condra design made use of an intricate arrangement of limit switches to prevent any possibility of long travel while the boom is extended. Travelling with an extended boom would damage the building,” he explains.
“To achieve the most compact possible machine dimensions, Condra used KSeries hoists foot-mounted on underslung crabs, lifted up and between the two girders along which they travel.”
The new cranes have variable-speed drives fitted to achieve speeds of up to 4.5 m a minute on the lift, 20.2 m a minute on the cross travel and 30.7 m a minute on the long travel, improving productivity.
Travel on the telescopic boom will be 4.3 m a minute.
“The main and telescopic sections are independently mobile and designed in such a way that long-travel movement will automatically halt if the telescopic unit is near a column,” said the spokesperson.