What Should You Do When Stops of Feed Pellet Mills Occur?
Published:February 16, 2014
By:Lana Chen
In the feed pelleting process, the operator will meet situations in which a feed pellet mill stops or need to stop. When it occurs, what should the operator do according to the specific situation? Here are the tips of stop situations and solutions.
In summary, there are three kinds of stop situations of feed pellet mill: normal stop, sudden stop, stop due to overload.
1. When the feed pellet mill need a normal stop, one should stop the screw feeder first and then stop the mixer; check through the inspection door of the conveyor whether the product is exhausted. Before stopping the pellet mill, feed the mill manually for some minutes with an oily product. In this way the holes of the die filled with an elastic product which can be easily removed and by which it is possible to start again next time when the die will be used again. Do not force opening the door before the pellet mill has come to a complete stop.
2. When the stop occurs suddenly due to power failure. According to the power failure situation, what you should do is different. If there is not electric power you must remove the hexagonal cap on the top of the door catch using a rod, push down the pin of the safety piston so as to free the catch and open the door. Then replace the cap on the hole in the catch. At last remove from the die all material not yet compressed. If the interruption is short and the die has no time to cool, close the main door and start the pellet mill pouring in the material. If the interruption is so long that the temperature of the die drops slowly to the room temperature, it might be possible to be obliged to remove the die to clean the holes.
3. When there is too much feeding of product or a foreign matter between the die and the rollers and it will create an overload, this situation will lead to the shear pin breaking. Due to the prompt operation of the circuit breaker, the feed pellet mill will stop. Under this circumstance, one should remove the reason of the overload in case of excess of feed. Wait until the pellet mill stops before open the main door, then remove the foreign matter, if any, and clean the pelleting parts; finally make sure that neither the die nor the rolls have been damaged. Replace the pieces damaged, if any. Take again the driving group to the correct position. Replace the shear pin. Check the correct operation of the circuit breaker of the shear pin housing.
