Crushing & Screening Controls — walk-around checklist

A one-page checklist to carry through the plant. It pairs with the full guide, Getting More From a Crushing and Screening Plant Through Controls. Work top to bottom, note what you find, and fix the cheap honest things first. Nothing here asks you to defeat a safety function.

Before You Start: Measure Utilization ☐ Pull run-time and stoppage logs from the PLC for a representative week ☐ Add up actual running hours at rate versus available hours ☐ List the top three stoppage causes by lost time, not by count ☐ Confirm the plant's rated tons per hour and compare to your best steady hour ☐ Decide: is this a capacity problem, or a utilization problem hiding as one?

Feed Control and Choke Feeding ☐ Confirm the crusher runs choke fed (chamber full), not starved, most of the time ☐ Check what the feed loop controls on: motor amps or true power in kilowatts (kW) ☐ Find out whether the VFD or protection relay already publishes real power ☐ Watch the feeder for hunting or surging that points to an over-tight loop ☐ Slow a twitchy feed loop down before assuming you need more of anything

Surge Bin and Buffer Management ☐ Note where the bin level normally sits: pinned full, pinned empty, or mid-range ☐ Confirm the regulating loop targets a mid-range band, not a hard number ☐ Look at the raw level signal for noise; add filtering if it bounces ☐ Check that the loop leans downstream rate gently rather than chasing level tightly ☐ Verify high- and low-level protection is separate logic from the regulating loop