A photo of the RockLabs® hydraulic crusher/splitter with the vinyl flaps down. The hydraulic pump is the yellow thing on the left. The on-off switch and up-down lever are located on the yellow pump.
Prelude
To use this crusher you need samples of appropriate size, say at least 5 mm across. Smaller samples are more easily crushed in a Plattner mortar, usually kept with the mineralogy teaching equipment. If your samples are bigger than 100 mm across, they will not fit into the hydraulic crusher/splitter. You may also have to break off weathered areas, joints, veins, or other parts you do not want in your final crushed sample. Find a place to break your big samples into smaller (50 mm) samples using a hammer. Presently, the south end of room Olin 003 is being used. There are wood stumps to put the rocks on before you smash them.
You will need the a stump and a hammer, perhaps a big hammer, perhaps even a sledge hammer. You also MUST use safety equipment, particularly goggles (eyeglasses are not enough). Hearing protection is also wise.
After you finish breaking your rocks into suitable size pieces, you MUST clean up after yourself.
Overview
The RockLabs® crusher and splitter is basically an hydraulic powered ram with two pairs of tungsten carbide working tools. The hydraulic ram has a maximum force of ~29 tons, though much less is needed to crush any rock that can fit. The flat pair of tools have upper and lower tungsten carbide plates for rock crushing, designed for rocks up to 5 cm across. The knife edge pair is used to split cores or to break large rock. The splitter contains top and bottom triangular tungsten carbide bars. The two different pairs of tools swing in and out of position. Spring-loaded pins hold them into position. The resulting small rock fragments and powder can later be further processed and analyzed.
The flat crusher tools are rotated and locked into place (the splitter tools have been rotated around behind).
The splitter tools have here been rotated and locked into place (the crusher tools have been rotated off to the sides).
Operation
The first step in operating the Crusher/Breaker is safety. Safety goggles should be worn at all times when crushing or breaking rocks. The rubber flaps that surround the instrument must be down at all times, but these should not be relied upon to stop all flying rock fragments. Next plug the pump into a suitable outlet. The pump is operated in the same fashion for both the crusher and splitter. A lever on top of the pump has three positions. When the lever is positioned to the right, the ram will go up. When the lever is positioned to the left, the ram will go down to crush or split your sample. The middle lever position is idle or neutral and the ram will not move. Regardless of the lever position, the pump needs to be turned on. This can be done with a manual switch in the right side of the pump, or using the foot-operated switch.
The electric pump that runs the ram. The lever is on the top, toward the back, and the manual on/off switch is on the right side.
A photo of the lever used to control the vertical movement of both the bars and plates. The lever is currently in the up or ascending position.
A photo of the foot operated switch used to run the electric pump. Your foot goes in the big side to turn the pump on and off. The lever on the pump controls the direction the ram moves.
Cleaning
Before crushing anything the samples have to be free of weathered parts, veins, altered joints, and other potential contaminating factors. This kind of sample cleaning is usually done with a hammer, though the hydraulic splitter can help. Samples to be crushed should be rinsed with deionized water, then air dried, to remove contaminating dust.
Cleaning the crusher itself is perhaps the most important aspect of using this device. If thorough cleaning of the crusher does not take place, contamination between samples will occur resulting in inaccurate, possibly meaningless data. Clean the device before crushing anything. After crushing one sample, the sample fragments are collected into a plastic bag or other container. You must then clean the crusher to be ready for the next sample. It is very important to completely clean the plates and the surrounding area of the machine and table. When using the splitter to break large specimens, cleaning between samples is not usually necessary because they still have to be crushed.
A plastic sample bag used to collect the rock powder and fragments after being crushed by the tungsten carbide plates.
After hours of crushing, you will look longingly at the exit door.
The above information was provided with the aid of the RockLabs© Laboratory Hydraulic Crusher/Breaker Instruction Manual. This web page was prepared by Mike Nigro.
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Schenectady, NY 12308 U.S.A. |