Conversion and upgrade of 12-tonne floating grab crane at Nieuwe Waterweg Silo

Following a malfunction of the hoisting and closing motor of the 12-tonne floating grab crane at the Nieuwe Waterweg Silo, EPMC Europe Crane Solutions was asked to carry out and monitor the hoisting and closing movements using frequency controllers and a controller inside card. After re-engineering, the new 90 kW IEC motors were fitted, in addition to the supply and assembly of completely new control units with controllers and PLC card for grapple control. We also installed a new crane operator seat including joystick.

Implementation of new features

A unique aspect of this assignment was the fact that special features, such as the ‘scraping clean’ of the cargo at the bottom of the vessel, adjustable digging of the various grapples and the ultrafast opening of the grapple above the lighter, were implemented into the existing hardware and software. The successful modifications resulted in significant improvements to the deployability and operating speed of this floating crane. The loading times were reduced by approximately 2 hours.