BCA Industries offers customizable shredder

BCA Industries, a Milwaukee-based manufacturer of recycling equipment and industrial shredders, says it offers shredding technology that can help recyclers shred tough metal to produce chips at high volumes using advances in hydraulic systems.

According to a news release from BCA Industries, traditional large-capacity shredders have points of vulnerability, such as knives, shafts, bearings and hydraulics that are not truly designed for such volumes or loads, which can result in breakdowns and production downtime. Additionally, the process of shredding, screening and grinding metals and materials to size with different equipment in separate operations has been a bottleneck to processing. To ensure high production and reliability, BCA Industries says it developed a high-volume, high-torque shredder to reduce tough metals designed to minimize breakdowns.

The company’s customizable ES2000 shredder, called “The Beast,” is designed for tough applications, such as ferrous metals, nonferrous metals, electronic scrap and truck tires. The shredder comes in stationary and portable units. With 24-inch diameter hard-faced knives using a base AR-500 alloy, 55-inch by 72-inch by 44-inch cutting chambers and 8-inch 4130 Chromoly steel shafts, the unit can reduce very large metal scrap. With 24,000 to 38,000 pounds total gross weight, not including power supply, the shredder is designed to shred 15 to 35 tons of metal or dense materials per hour with 179,000 foot-pounds of torque per knife. When more throughput is required, it can be rated up to 800 horsepower and use dual cutting chambers. To maximize high-torque throughput and efficiency, it uses a pressure compensated variable displacement pump that allows the rpm to increase and decrease based on load.

According to BCA Industries, the unit’s design addresses the vulnerabilities of conventional shredders by using an inexpensive cluster drive system of eight small hydraulic motors that create redundancy in the power supply, which eliminates much of the possible downtime. These cluster drive motors are off-the-shelf and readily accessible, and BCA Industries reports that they minimize cost while increasing reliability.

Instead of 7-inch shafts, the 8-inch Chromoly shafts increase usable life, BCA Industries reports. In place of old HEX shaft design or a double key round shaft, the unit uses a six-key design where the knife rides on disposable keys not directly on the shaft. With the keys taking abuse instead of the shaft, the design eliminates shaft washout and simplifies knife changes.

According to BCA Industries, this shredder is designed with a double labyrinth style drop zone and outboard bearings, which eliminates any direct path to the shaft bearings. It also allows compressed material a path to exit the shredder.