Wendt Installs Upgraded Nonferrous System at Recycle WV

The equipment company Wendt Corp., Tonawanda, N.Y., has installed an upgraded nonferrous system at Recycle West Virginia’s auto shredder facility in Princeton, W.V. The company says the upgrade is a result of Recycle WV’s goal to expand its plant’s throughput and maximize the value of the products the company is already producing, as well as create new products from its automobile shredder residue (ASR).

Recycle WV originally installed a Harris 98/115 auto shredder and nonferrous separation plant that included Steinert and Eriez equipment. With the auto shredder in place, Recycle WV sought to increase the amount of scrap copper it could recover from the ASR. Additionally, Recycle WV researched steps it could take to improve its existing products.

To understand more about Wendt’s nonferrous process, Recycler WV’s management worked with Wendt to test opportunities to extract more material from the ASR. Tests at Wendt’s headquarters found that additional material, notably copper wire, could be extracted from the ASR.

The nonferrous equipment that Recycler WV purchased included a Wendt Tumble Back Feeder, two 80 inch dual magnetic separators, an 80 inch single magnetic separator, two Wendt/TiTech Finders, a Wendt/TiTech Fines Finder and a Wendt/TiTech PolyFinder. The system was commissioned at the end of September, according to Valerie Andrews, a Wendt sales and marketing representative.

The Wendt/TiTech Finders feature TiTech SUPPIX software and TiTech-designed sensors that recover any remaining nonferrous metals from the flow. The remaining material will be run through the Wendt/TiTech PolyFinder, which use near infrared scanners, to separate a premium insulated copper wire product.

Upgrading Recycle WV’s plant provided Wendt’s design, application, structural and electrical engineers with unique problems. In addition to the issues involved with updating an existing system, the nonferrous plant upgrade created challenges because it is located inside an historic factory building and Wendt was limited in the type of renovations that were allowed to be made to the building. The upgraded system required a new motor control center, and the current electrical controls were updated to work with an Allen Bradley-equipped main PLC panel.

Wendt says Recycle WV also chose the mobile tablet controls, which allows for wireless connection and mobile control and monitoring of entire nonferrous systems from anywhere with Internet access. In a release, Wendt says that the tablet will provide the scrap metal company with the same functionality as its main PLC system.

Recycle WV’s Tommy Bishop says. “I’m extremely happy with the controls package Wendt put together. When I’m anywhere in the plant, I can control the entire system, observe warnings and alarms and access production data from the Wendt-provided tablet. It is near impossible to find any type of metal in my fluff. The current rate of recovery is exceeding our expectations and we anticipate an excellent ROI.”

Andrews notes that since starting the company has been operating the shredder with the new downstream system between 15-16 hours per day with only around 25 minutes of downtime for maintenance each day. "I have spoken with Tommy Bishop several times since the commissioning and he is thrilled with the system. The current rate of recovery far exceeds his company's expectations," Andrews says.