First boom lift for new dragline at Freedom Mine

This mid-July morning will be witness to a major milestone in dragline construction.

(Travis Horning): "This would be the last one, and it's also the biggest milestone."

They're going to lift the boom for the first time on the dragline at Freedom Mine.

(Travis Horning): "Lifting the boom up does not take very long, anywhere from seven to twelve minutes, but it takes about three hours, four hours, to get prepped to raise the boom."

Travis Horning is the project manager for The Coteau Properties Company. This dragline was brought to the Freedom Mine from Illinois. Crews have been rebuilding it since January of 2010.
Today, there's a 20-person crew on site. To prepare to lift the boom, they're doing safety checks, and checking electrical and brakes.

(Travis Horning): "They're making sure, first of all, that the electrics are running correctly, the MGs. Making sure that we have blowers, making sure the motors stay cool while we're raising the boom, making sure the fans all work. And then they're also checking brakes, we have to check all the brakes, to make sure they all open, function correctly. And then from there, we're watching pinch points while we raise the boom."

The boom came to the site in four major pieces. It's taken eight months to weld together.

(on radio): "Okay, if you guys are ready on the inside, we're ready on the outside."

(horns for lift): honk, honk

The mast lifts the 640-thousand-pound boom, and the action is controlled from inside the cab. Once the lift starts, it's finished in seven minutes.

(Travis Horning): "We use power of the machine. It'll be the MGs that's running, turning AC into DC power to run the 8 DC motor, hoist motors."

(Tracie): "So, it's electricity."

(Travis): "Yup, it's electricity."

Through the lift, ground fault monitoring is deenergized, meaning other draglines in service are turned off, to avoid an electrical trip.

(Travis Horning): "It's grounded, but it's not picking up any loss of, stray voltage going to the ground. We can pick up milliamps, and we don't want to pick up any of that."

Once the boom is fully upright, crews attach the boom to the mast using eight cables. Soon, the dragline will be painted, and walked around its construction site.

http://www.basinelectric.com
http://basinelectric.wordpress.com

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Basin
• Electric
• Power
• Cooperative
• co-op
• Freedom
• Mine
• dragline
• boom
• mast
• lift
• milestone
• The
• Coteau
• Properties
• Company
• Co.
• Beulah
• ND
• North
• Dakota

[DuramaxDiesels]

Wow this is great. Thanks alot for posting this!! Everything out at Coteau is really amazing to see and watch work. Thank You.