FB Chain to showcase uptime-enhancing conveyor components at RWM 2016
British industrial chain manufacturer and supplier FB Chain will use its RWM 2016 stand (5S79) to showcase cleverly-designed scrapers, wear strips and sprockets that are helping recycling and waste management customers all around Europe to maximize their conveyor uptime and profitability.
Throughout its 30-year history FB Chain has acted not only as a supplier to the recycling and waste management sectors – of conveyor and roller chains, sprockets, pins, bushes, rollers and attachments – but also as a design consultant, helping customers to achieve the very best performance from their conveyor operations.
FB Chain’s Inno scraper attachments made from multi-laminated beech, for example, were originally designed to combat the costly consequences of overloading experienced by recycling customers in Germany. When customers’ traditional steel scrapers (from another supplier) had buckled under pressure, causing irreparable damage to chains, sprockets and even chipping units and furnaces, FB Chain came to the rescue with a range of wooden flights that simply snap when overloaded. While just as durable, FB Inno scrapers cause no damage to surrounding components, are simpler, quicker and cheaper to replace and at one tenth of the weight of traditional steel scrapers, they dramatically reduce stress on conveyor drives, not to mention energy running costs.
FB Chain’s two-colour polyethylene wear strips, meanwhile, were first developed for a biomass customer in the UK to help better manage replacement schedules. In FB Chain’s unique design two contrasting coloured plastics are layered over each other and as soon as the base colour becomes visible through the top layer, technicians know that it is time to replace the chain guide. This visual cue acts as a convenient built-in wear indicator. Technicians do not need to stop the conveyor to check the degree of wear and it ensures they are replaced at the optimum time – not too early, generating unnecessary expenditure, and not too late when damage could be caused to the conveyor chain.
Just as these key innovations help to keep customers’ conveyors up and running, so too do FB Chain’s popular self-cleaning sprockets with induction-hardened teeth made from corrosion-resistant steel. The grooves around the edge of each sprocket prevent loose material from becoming trapped between the teeth, reducing maintenance requirements and increasing the life of the sprocket.
Hall 5, stand S79
FB Chain will be showcasing each of these industry-leading products, alongside its portfolio of conveyor and roller chains, at the at the forthcoming RWM exhibition, taking place at the NEC in Birmingham 13th–15th September. FB Chain’s representatives will be on hand to discuss materials, coatings and attachments, as well as other design challenges specific to the recycling and waste management industries.
“At FB Chain we don’t just supply conveyor components, rather we work together with customers to develop innovative solutions that overcome their individual challenges and boost the performance of their entire conveyor – including efficiency, ease of maintenance, service life and total cost of ownership,” says Darran Green, sales manager at FB Chain. “We are very much looking forward to meeting with new customers at RWM in September and having some stimulating discussions about how to solve their conveyor problems.”