Recently Palmer Manufacturing & Supply Inc. in Springfield, OH, developed and built a novel — and enormous — system for handling molds for sand recovery at Caterpillar Inc.’s foundry in Mapleton, IL.
The system offers the foundry a considerable degree of flexibility for handling heavy molds, and different mold sizes. Specifically, it can hold molds weighing up to nine tons — 18,000 lb — with a sequence time of 72 seconds. More than that, it elevates the load up to 18 feet, with 22 feet of lateral movement.
Palmer Manufacturing conceived the operation, handled all the design and engineering work, and assembled and test the system in-house. Once it was delivered to he Caterpillar foundry, the new machine was integrated with systems developed by Didion International and EMI Inc.
“The Palmer Tripper Car receives different size molds with weights up to 18,000 lb from a moving plow,” explained company president Jack Palmer. “We were pleased to be selected by Caterpillar for this demanding, complex, and highly custom project, “ he added.
“In less than 20 weeks we completed a project that has never been done before. We integrated systems from EMI and Didion to make a complete turnkey operation from poured molds to grain-sized reclaimed sand,” he said.
To document their accomplishment prior to delivering the tripper car, Palmer Manufacturing staged a demo/demo, showing of the power and flexibiltiy of the new machine. Watch it here.