Do you need to replace or repair a conveyor belt on a metal detection system? When replacing a belt on conveyor systems you should pay attention to several key areas. The most important things to consider are the belt material and the belt splice. Metal detectors such as the Goring Kerr (Thermo), Safeline, Loma or Fortress Technology metal detectors are all impacted by these installation issues. Obviously you cannot use a metal zipper to connect the ends of the belt when used on a metal detection system. Equally important is the makeup of the belt. Many ‘colored’ belts contain pigments that interfere with most metal detectors.
Where possible try to use a white belt with a core made of similar material. Often the inside layers of conveyor belts contain black carbon based materials. These materials act like small pieces of metal and will reduce your metal detectors performance or cause false rejects.
The other critical element to consider when using fabric belting on a conveyor system is the splice. When a splice passes through a metal detector the electromagnetic field and electric field change as the splice passes through. This often causes the metal detector to loss some performance or at worst causes false rejects. To avoid this uses a splice that isn’t in a straight line, either a diagonal splice or a finger splice. Both of these splices gradually move through the metal detector reducing the overall effect on the metal detection ability. When splicing belts make sure your splice tools are clean and free of small metal pieces. If even the smallest piece of metal lodges in to the belt splice the metal detector will reject on it.
So next time you have a metal detector belt to replace remember the simple rules of, material type and splice type.
What ever happened to Goring Kerr? They use to be the leader in industrial metal detection equipment. Are they still the leader?