Mobile Crusher Electrical Failure 3/9/18

At approximately midnight on 3/9/18 while clearing material jammed in TKZ was notified by team lead of the smell of burn-

ing in the crusher area. When arriving at crusher there was the apparent smell of burnt electrical components and no power to

the crusher. Upon opening the main disconnect panel it was filled with smoke. Electrician and electrical supervisor was called

to assist in investigation and troubleshooting.

The shift’s crusher operator reported he had finished running a load through the crusher and was returning with another

load when he noticed the crusher was down with no power. His observation led to the callout for investigation.

With on call electrical support on site troubleshooting began. All cables were inspected for dead shorts/damage, break-

ers were inspected and reset. Attempt was made to power back up crusher. It was first

noticed that the crusher motor’s soft start (200HP motor) was not receiving any feedback to

the display panel. While attempting to start additional support equipment it had the symp-

tom of single phasing had motors would attempt to start and then the rotor would lock.

This symptom lead to finding one of the main fuses blown. Additionally the cover to the soft

start was removed and one of the phase legs had a catastrophic failure. No spares were

available on site. In addition to the failed leg one of the circuit boards had shorted out.

Contacts were made to suppliers to have replacement parts shipped in.

On the arrival of the parts the blown fuse was

replaced. This allowed the ability to open the

crusher hood and it was found to be filled with

+12” rocks from the feeder down to the rotor.

Mechanical support arrived to assist in the

cleaning out of the crusher. After all the over-

sized rock was removed it was found that wet

packed material was present from the rotor’s centerline down to the crusher discharge belt ≈ 3’ of material. A portion of the

material was dugout and loosened up to allow it to be fluid again.

Inspection of the return side of the belt showed about four oversized rocks rang-

ing from +6” to +12” on the screen section with an 8” rock wedged between the

return roller and belt pushing the belt up against a cross member. Most likely this

stalled the belt (belt’s breaker was in a tripped mode when first found as well)

however with no interlock between this belt and the crusher rotor and feeder the
crusher continued to run until it was full stalling the rotor and then blowing the soft start and fuse.

The soft start was found to have a 20 second trip setting. This trip setting may be too high for this application. Trip setting was
set by OEM.

Post mortem conversation with OEM indicates that the oversized rock’s advancement pass the crusher rotor would be the re-
sults of either a non-crushable object (bucket tooth, tramp metal, wood) or the possibility of over feeding or feeding the system
with larger material.