I had an extremely hard time belting dirt on the job i was doing. is there any trick or special hopper that makes it easier?

The problem I was having was the excavator had a big bucket, so it was loading a lot of material at once into the hopper. When it hit the hopper, it was building up on the outside, then bridging over the center, blocking the flow of dirt.

I tried to switch out the concrete hopper, and that was working, but it was going way too slow because he had to trickle the dirt into the hopper.

I understand the belts move dirt, but i guess i dont understand how they move it easily.

The dirt was slightly moist, and i think that may have been a big factor in it ??

The moisture was the biggest factor.  Not really your fault, concern or problem, just like an unpumpable concrete mix, this was 'unbeltable' dirt.  And really, once it was on moving on the belt, no problem, it just was too cohesive to feed properly.  Did you have any problems in the transfer point?

The last "dirt" job I did was in the rain.  They had to put a laborer on each side of my rock hopper to help the dirt (mud) get to the feeder belt.  A lot of work for them, but as pumpjockey stated about your situation, not my fault.  Conveyors are machines, not magic.  Good luck!

alright good. Because those contractors in NYC were all pissed off at me because i had told them it would belt dirt. And they kept saying, I thought you said it would belt dirt!? I was like "Listen buddy, It will belt dirt, but your dirt is wet so I dont know what to tell ya"

Thanks for the insite, just wanted to make sure it wasn't something I was doing wrong!

It's a material issue.  Too sticky to feed through with the TB's hopper.  Perhaps if they had a topsoil shredder/screener feeding the TB.  Like this, but maybe even without the trommel (drum screen).    http://www.screenmachine.com/might-trommel-screen.php

I posted a "Tricks" article that might help.

http://www.putzmeistertricks.com/

BTW, the TB-105 is yours.  It was taken October 19,1999 at Pearson Airport, Toronto.  We were placing gravel on top of a membrane.  This was for a holding pond for glycol run-off from de-icing aircraft.

Or, if you have a LOT of sticky RCC, for a dam, how about the MAXON Maxcrete?  BTW, I like the "Screen Machine," above, but getting a customer to pay for these extras is tricky.  They all want it included in the rental rate.

Hmm thanks W9y. I've actually never saw that TB-105 before. Looks really nice. Down here in the states we do not have one of those 3-yard hoppers either. That would probably be the trick there!

and Thanks Jockey, that machine you posted would have probably worked wonders on the job!!!

I posted it because I thought it might be a reasonable machine for the purpose, although not near the capacity that the TB is capale of.  If the contractor wants BIG production out of the TB, then he ought to be willing to pay for the size of processing machine required to obtain the production.

We once did a crushing job that got rained on every other day and the material was so wet and sticky that if wouldn't feed though our normal felt feeder, so we ran it though out jaw crusher with it's vibratory grizzley feeder (the jaw was entirely not neccessary) just to feed into our crusher's hopper so that it was 'fluffy' and wouldn't bridge.  The loader would cause the material to pack in the regular hopper.  We had a bit of trouble with the material in the VFG too, but we could deal with it much easier.

Brandon I had the same problem this summer on a large job. They were actually checking the moisture content (for proper compaction)and adding water to their stock pile at times. I installed that dump truck bedliner stuff to my 1 yard hopper and still didnt help. I borrowed a 3 cy hopper from a friend,that didnt help either. if you look at the angles of both hoppers they are basically the same. Some times just aint gunna work. Spend 10 days on the same job with two laborers with shovels cleaning dirt from the hopper sides. Nice $$$ though 11 hr billable days even left the truck there and fueled up on site with portable fuel. BTW priming old hat now with the ol Mayco ha ha. Terry

thanks terry, that's what I figured with the dirt. glad your doing well with the maco!

truck at power plant (test with mobile app)

A hopper with a hinged grizzly works well

Charge Double for Dirt.

Northwest63,

That looks a lot like a job I did, in Baltimore, except mine was concrete.  It was for the new baseball stadium, Camden Yards.  I used a 105 to deliver low slump curbing mix to a small slip-form paver.  We were doing the concrete bases for bleacher seats.  1994, or so.

We edited the post on www.putzmeistertricks.com to show our optional grate, or "grizzly."

After a couple of days of wearing out a couple customer furnished laborers, customer finally decided to bring in a grizzly. Much more productive.