On Wednesday, August 14^th, WipWare’s Value Added Retailer Technical Liaison, Marty Wanner visited Queen’s University in the beautiful city of Kingston, Ontario.  Marty worked with the Head of The Robert M. Buchan Department of Mining, Takis Katsabanis, and the Bachelor of Mining Engineering Technology students. They completed a hands-on lab that included reviewing manual sieving techniques and photo analysis with WipWare’s fragmentation analysis software, WipFrag 3.

The lab included reviewing the WipFrag iOS App and working with WipFrag for Windows. Also, the lab compared the manual sieve analysis results with the photo analysis software results. Features and benefits of both processes were discussed, and the features of online analysis systems were also reviewed.

Marty very much enjoyed working with the BTech students, learning more about manual sieving techniques, and sharing resources.

Our technical specialists are always available to assist our customers in understanding the capabilities of our systems and software. WipWare prides itself in providing ongoing technical support in-house and on-site. A two-day training workshop on WipWare’s WipFrag software was conducted with Hayden Materials, and host Austin Powder, in Elizabethtown, Kentucky.

The WipFrag team visited a local quarry during the workshop. The team demonstrated WipFrag and the use of drone technology. As a result, Hayden Material customers attending the workshop saw the systematic approach to size data collection and the UAV capabilities of the WipFrag software.

With WipFrag, customers can take drone orthomosaic images and analyze these images. This ability gives the customer a full picture of their fragmentation and make quantitative decisions based on these results.

The two-day training allowed new and existing users to explore the capabilities of WipFrag for iOS and Windows and to learn new techniques that can help operators create accurate reliable size data after blasts.

When acquiring image samples each image should:

• Contain an easy to read scale (two for tilt correction). If using two scales, both should be horizontal.
• Be high definition – Not necessarily high resolution.
• Never be taken with a wide-angle lens.
• Contain clearly visible particles (if you can outline each individual particle, the software can too).
• Have consistent lighting – avoid hot spot/shadow areas if possible.

For more information, please read the Sampling and Analysis Guide found on our WipFrag product page.

It’s always nice to be able to take in some local scenery and enjoy the trip, even when it’s business. As our Technical Specialist made his way to the Thyssenkrupp installation site in Lovelock, Nevada, he had the pleasure of enjoying Nevada’s landscape through Reno, Nevada. 

From June 19-21, our WipWare Technical Specialist was on-site at the Coeur Rochester mine site in Lovelock, Nevada to commission the installation of a two-month trial Vertex S System.

Following the installation of the Vertex frame, the camera was focused and the scale was set. Additional installation of the fabric canopy will take place at a later time after lighting has been installed.

The product installed is a Vertex S conveyor particle analysis system. This WipWare technology should perform very well in this application. The system will be able to detect oversize material allowing automation and improve crusher output optimization efforts.

Thank you to the Thyssenkrupp team for working with our technical specialist for a successful installation and commissioning.

WipWare representatives Thomas Palangio and Thomas de Sousa were on site at Peña Colorada Mine at Minatitlán, Colima, Mexico at the end of March to install and commission WipWare’s Solo (Online Conveyor Particle Size Analysis) System.

After installation, the system was able to successfully establish connection to the Peña Colorada network. The installation and calibrations were completed during this visit and real-time particle size telemetry is now being collected at the processing plant. 

As part of the comparison process, sieve data was collected and compared to the raw system data and calibrated. This helps to ensure that the data collected

After a successful installation, a tutorial was held on WipFrag 3.2 and how to use it as the Human to Machine Interface.

With the help from the Peña Colorada team, WipWare representatives, Thomas Palangio and Thomas de Sousa, successfully completed the installation of the Solo System. The data quality generated form the Solo system is excellent, the system has been successfully calibrated through sieve analyses to generate accurate and relevant size and volume data on the conveyor line. Moving forward, the Solo system will prove to be a highly effective tool to measure material size and shape telemetry in real-time.

On March 12,  Marty Wanner, our Technical Specialist arrived on-site to commission the WipWare SOLO (Online Conveyor Particle Size Analysis) System at the Meliadine gold development project in Nunavut Territory.

The Meliadine mine is located near the western shore of Hudson Bay in the Kivalliq District of Nunavut, about 25 km north of Rankin Inlet and 290 km southeast of the Meadowbank mine. Meliadine includes seven gold deposits, six of which are part of the current mine plan. The 98,222-hectare property covers an 80-km-long greenstone belt.

Upon his arrival, Marty was given a brief tour of the facility and then proceeded to review the control room setup. The Solo system was installed prior to Marty’s arrival and the installation was very well done and connectivity was confirmed.

During his visit, Marty calibrated the system, taking a belt cut for sieve analysis. Sieve data was collected and compared to the raw system data; the difference correction between these two results is referred to as the calibration which compensates for unseen fines and other material characteristics. Using this technique, the Solo system was successfully calibrated.

After a successful calibration, a training session was done to demonstrate the function of  the WipFrag software for blast fragmentation analysis. Additional information regarding the SOLO system calibration process  and additional features of WipFrag were explained.

Thank you to the Meliadine team for their assistance in a successful commissioning of WipWare’s SOLO system.