Wales-based Eriez Magnetics Europe has developed the SpyMet metal locator, a metal detector system accessory for tracking and locating tramp metal on a conveyor belt. It can be operated in two different modes—manual or automatic—and is designed to track multiple positions and quantities of metal contaminants on a variable-speed conveyor. The accuracy of the system is plus/minus half the metal detector sensor depth and it can track up to 20 separate metal pieces simultaneously. SpyMet can be operated in conjunction with any metal detector and can also be used to operate a third-party device, such as a reject arm, inkjet marker or air-blast system. The manual mode is useful for applications where the belt is not able to stop immediately (because of large volume or high speed) after tramp metal has been detected. The conveyor is divided into 1-m-wide zones, downstream from the metal detector sensor. Once the belt has stopped, SpyMet will indicate the zone number and the number of metal contaminates within the zone. Automatic mode can be used for applications where the conveyor belt does not stop when tramp metal is detected. www.en-gb.eriez.com
