Multiple options available for Thomas Manufacturing’s trusted mobile batching plant models
Built for ease of transport and with flexible options available, the mobile concrete batching plants produced by Thomas Manufacturing are in hot demand, both in Australia and overseas.
Established in 1997, the company is dedicated to building custom-made equipment for the crushing, mining, and recycling industries.
In doing so, it develops everything from bagging plants to feed hoppers, conveyors, pre-coating plants, screening plants, stackers and trommels.
But the company’s batching plants have enjoyed steady popularity, with company owner Errol Thomas saying the company has recently taken an order for unit 145 after 20 years of building them.
“It’s a bit of a niche market – we build them robust enough to handle pretty severe conditions, and we build them so they are very simple plants to operate… when our plants are going into remote areas we try and keep the technology out of it and keep it simple,” Thomas says.
“Too much technology means too many things can go wrong.”
This is part of the unit’s appeal for operators in remote locations, with buyers across regional Queensland and the Gulf as well as Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Fiji and Christmas and Cocos Islands.
While Thomas Manufacturing sets out to keep the designs simple, Thomas says that the company does offer “pages and pages” of different options for new technologies that customers may seek out.
Its Top of the Range model features a six cubic metre loading hopper with foldup hungry boards and can handle up to 20 tonnes of weight through its shear beam Rinstrum load cell system.
Next to that is a 2.5 cubic metre cement hopper with an air slide, an access ladder built to take bulka bags with an option to add an extension to take its capacity to six cubic metres – along with a bag house and its Dustcotech ISO fill system.
The Top of the Range batching plant is electrically powered by a 44kVA generator fitted with a 32 CFM air compressor, 600mm discharge conveyor, cement auger, air operated butterfly valves and air slides and Manu Flow automatic water system.
The whole concrete batch plant is operated by a Rinstrum batch control system.
Operators can monitor capacity of both the clamshell and conveyor using a new camera system, complete with screen, while the weighing system also features a five-digit readout panel.
Thomas Manufacturing offers different options for the clamshell doors on the hopper including a manual solution developed from a trailer’s jockey wheel to wind the doors shut, through to a push button operation and even an automated system.
A similar arrangement is in place for its water systems, which can use a simple meter to monitor how much water is used, through to an automated system that can be set and forgotten about.
“So you can go from the very, very simple version to the very, very technical version, and we cover all of those spaces, from there and everything in between,” Thomas says.
He adds that the company has also embraced new technologies.
“We have just developed our own batch control system with Rinstrum instruments, which we use for all our measuring and mix calculations.
“It is basically on a laptop, which is wireless to the plant, so you don’t have to be anywhere near the plant to operate the plant… it also allows us to access that plants batch control system from anywhere in the world.”
Other new features include an awning for operators’ comfort, Spitwater high pressure wash down system and retractable air and water hoses, Landcruiser rims and tyres, two sets of 28-tonne wind-down trailer legs and a six-tonne tow ring.
The conveyors and augers on the batching plants are powered by SEW Eurodrive gearboxes and motors.
Thomas says the ISO market has become very popular and it has adapted its plants to take on this market. This has taken away a lot of the problems with bulka bags and the storage of cement onsite with the ISO system preventing the moisture issues that were encountered in Northern remote areas.
“In a nutshell, the ISO tanks are placed next to our batching plants and pumped directly into our plants to process the batch, this is more efficient than bulk bags,” he says.
The unit price is for a Top of the Range batching plant is $242,340 plus GST, with extra options available for additional costs.