It is always hard to replace a tried and trusted brand, but the ESCO® NEXSYS® GET Lip System for rope shovel dippers looks to be making a strong business case for mine sites already used to working with the existing Whisler Plus™ system.
Weir says the system is designed to lower lip maintenance requirements, extend tooth and adapter life and, ultimately, provide miners with longer uninterrupted shovel operation.
The Weir – ESCO Division has achieved this using field data from hundreds of Whisler Plus system installations, laboratory simulation and analysis and customer input, it says.
“We’ve been serving Whisler Plus customers for 20 years. We are proud of the reputation it has within the marketplace for wear life and longevity,” Kevin Stangeland, Vice President of Global Products, ESCO, told IM at the recent MINExpo 2024, in Las Vegas. “At the time of its release, Whisler Plus was seen as revolutionary; it has allowed us to capture a market share close to 50%.”
Considering the machines these systems are used on are viewed as the workhorses of the open-pit sector, rope shovels, ESCO knew it would need something equally revolutionary to move existing customers onto a new product.
Stangeland and the ESCO team believe they have achieved that.
The NEXSYS system comes with a new tooth design that requires fewer point changes, according to the company. This is thanks to a rear wear cap that extends service life and protects the rear stabiliser boss. Additionally, the system has dual lock slots to allow lock installation on the side of the dipper with less wear. A single sealed lock on the GET teeth reduces impacted fines for easier removal with an off-the-shelf hand tool.
Weir also stresses the benefits of an optimised nose position and geometry for an extension of adapter life with improved penetration and loading. An advanced point configuration maintains a sharp profile and increases life by over 15%, the company claims.
The addition of a leading edge lip insert – made from a very high hardness alloy – to increase adapter stability and better distribute loads, provides up to four times greater resistance to wear, reducing overall rebuild complexity and cost, according to Weir.
Add to this an up to 15% lighter adapter for overall system weight savings and Weir clearly has a product in contention for retaining – or building on – the market share the Whisler Plus has accrued.
At MINExpo, Stangeland confirmed the NEXSYS GET Lip System had been “in the dirt” with field trials for over 18 months at three trial sites – one of these in iron ore – with up to 40% total cost of ownership reductions calculated through fewer “downtime events” and fewer components used during the campaign.
He said the company was using the findings from these positive trials to “refine” and “optimise” the system ahead of going commercial with NEXSYS system.