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Orbital
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Orbit
Screens,
Inc. - 722 3rd
Street - Delhi, Iowa 52223 - 563.922.9230 - brad@orbitscreens.com
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Iowa-Based Orbit Screens Prevent Explosions
WED JULY 25, 2018 - MIDWEST EDITION #15
ERIC OLSON –CEG CORRESPONDENT
One
day around 2005, as Brad Schnittjer remembers it, he was conducting a
fairly routine field day demonstration with one of his screening plants
at a dairy farm in Virginia when a man approached him asking several
intriguing questions.
The
results of that day pointed Orbit Screens Inc. in a surprising
direction — one that serves as a deep source of pride for Schnittjer,
the company's founder and president. His small screen-plant
manufacturing facility in tiny Delhi, Iowa, 40 miles west of Dubuque,
now has a large reputation for building a simple, but versatile,
machine with often life-saving capabilities.
“I think we were screening compost with our dealer that day when this
gentleman drove by and saw our machine operating,” said Schnittjer. “I
could see by his car that he was with the military. Well, he gets out
wearing a uniform and probably spent 20 minutes watching our machine at
work before he came over to me and said, 'You must have something to do
with this?' When I told him I did, he asked, 'How can I buy one of
these?'”
Schnittjer then introduced the man to the dealer, who gave the man a
quote and soon enough, a deal was made to sell him an Orbit Screen
plant. Schnittjer later learned that the machine was being tested for a
special use by the U.S. Army.
Screening for Hidden Explosives
The officer's name was Chris Wanner, a project engineer for the
Department of Defense in its Humanitarian Demining R&D Program
(HDM). The goal of the military's effort is to develop or, in the case
of Orbit Screen plants, to find off-the-shelf equipment that can be
modified to excavate and safely remove hidden anti-personnel landmines.
Without telling Schnittjer exactly how his screen plant was being used,
Wanner invited him to come to Virginia to discuss its potential use. He
was finally told what the Army was thinking and that the DOD wanted to
change the conveyor on the screener to better suit its needs.
After getting an eye-opening demonstration
of
just how the HDM was using his Orbit Screen Model 68A, Schnittjer
admitted that he was “dumbfounded and pretty proud” at the same time.
At a testing facility at Fort A.P. Hill, near Bowling Green, Va., about
an acre of land was planted with 330 plastic landmines. For safety
reasons, no explosives were placed within the mines — only the
detonators. As Schnittjer watched, excavators pulled up the dirt (and
the mines) before putting them into the Orbit Screen plant hopper.
After going through the rotating screen dish, every detonator and mine
was still, remarkably, intact when they were separated from the soil
and sent out onto the conveyor.
“Well, the Army and DOD people were just overjoyed with what they found
because they had never seen anything like that before,” he said.
Immediately, the benefits were clear: the potential for a non-lethal method of sifting dirt and rock looking for landmines.
From Compost to Landmines
It was quite a turn of events for Orbit Screens, which offers simple,
high-performance equipment in a compact, reliable, easily-maintained
and affordable package. Then and now, the company's machines screen
topsoil, compost mulch, log yard waste, quarry strippings, asphalt
millings, scarified asphalt, road base, river rock and buried junk.
The Orbit Screen Model 68 also was tested by the HDM in tandem with a
skid-steer loader and a rock crusher, leading the Army lab to conclude
that all three pieces of equipment “used either alone or as part of a
system…met or exceeded the challenge provided by the test protocol.”
The final report on the HDM website also said the machines could clear
mines regardless of the threat or difficulty of the environment or
terrain.
The same paper said the Orbit Screen 68A “performed without a single
mechanical or operational problem” during the rigorous testing.
The Orbit Screen Model 68 series is a stand-alone sifter that accepts
soil, rock and other material that is lifted into the hopper, located
on the top, that then conveys it into the dish-like screen. The rock
and materials, including small anti-personnel mines in former or
current war-ravaged parts of the world, tumble within the screen in a
circular motion. The smaller soils fall through the mesh, while the
larger pieces (including mines) are carried away from the screen plant.
A Unique Design That Saves Lives
The obvious question, then, is how does a landmine not explode during
the screening process? One would think that the tumbling of rock and
dirt onto a mine would detonate the charge.
“It is an interesting process,” Schnittjer said. “The weight of the
ordnance is measured only in the ounces. These small landmines are
lightweight plastic and it takes three to 5 pounds of pressure to set
off their detonator.”
He explained that when an excavator dumps into the Orbit Screens
hopper, explosions can occur with dirt and rock rolling onto them, but
the force of the blast is sent upward out of the top opening of the
armored machine and away from anyone working nearby. Each machine used
in the operation, too, is operated by remote control by personnel
located at a safe distance.
Still, though, landmines detonating during the screening process are
exceedingly rare, according to both Schnittjer and available DOD
documentation.
“The reason is because our screen dish is turning the dirt in the same
direction that the ordnance is falling, so there is not a big change in
velocity and pressure on the mine,” he reported. “The plastic itself is
light and will immediately float to the surface of that rolling mix. As
the mine is on the surface and falling out, there is nothing that can
really get to it.
“I think I have heard of only one mine going off in the screen dish itself.”
In Use by Humanitarian Groups
That first Orbit Screen 68A discovered working at a farm in Virginia
was eventually donated to The HALO Trust, a humanitarian organization
first founded in Great Britain in 1988.
HALO and the Mines Advisory Group (MAG) are currently the two biggest
humanitarian mine-clearance organizations, and Orbit Screens has worked
with both to overcome the challenges of ridding the world of hidden
ordnance. The two groups also have worked closely with the U.S. DOD's
demining program.
“The team from HDM were looking for a versatile screening unit that was
robust, economical, maneuverable and simple to operate, particularly in
war-ravaged countries,” said Guy Petts, a mechanical manager who has
worked with HALO and is currently with MAG. “By the time I left
Afghanistan there were at least three Orbit Screeners in the country,
some of which worked around the U.S. Bagram Air Base.”
“Obviously, they must think our screener is pretty robust because they
put thousands of hectares of material through it,” Schnittjer said.
“With a hectare equaling 2.3 acres and considering they take in the top
6 to 8 inches of soil to run through the screener, that's a lot of
dirt.”
Due to the successful use of Schnittjer's Orbit Screen 68 models, Petts
bought another one and took it into the African country of Mozambique,
where it carried out anti-personnel mine clearance from stockpiled
earth along a 70-mi.-long electric pylon line, which linked to South
Africa. The work took approximately four years, with the Orbit screener
being the predominant clearance machine, removing more than 10,000
anti-personnel mines and ordnance, Petts said.
HALO's
success in Africa led MAG to bring the Orbit Screens Model 68 series
(A, B and C) to northern Iraq, where it worked on legacy minefields
from the Iran-Iraq conflict, as well as barrier minefields from the
Gulf War. In recent times, Schnittjer's screens have worked along the
border minefields between Turkey and Syria, in the process of helping
refugees navigate safe passage.
“Thousands of mines and ordnance have been cleared using the Orbit
Screener with over 5,000 hours of use, only one engine change and very
little in the way of component replacements,” Petts stated. “The
continued support from Brad and the company has been great and any
issue, big or small, has always been met with the same enthusiasm.”
Schnittjer thinks that approximately 15 of his screen plants are now in
operation to help remove landmines in various locales, including along
the perpetually-troubled Israeli-Lebanese border.
Orbit Screens Are Multi-Purpose
But, he said, demining is an unusual application and it points out the
general-purpose capabilities of Orbit Screens, which he feels is unique.
“My original design work in the late 1970s and early '80s were for use
in compost, topsoil and mulching,” explained Schnittjer, who invented
the orbiting-screen process. “Later, after I formed Orbit Screens, we
initially didn't want to go into the aggregate business, too, but what
we found was, after customers began using them, including MAG, there
was enough aggregate that we had to tweak our machines a bit to keep
those little rocks from bouncing around and doing damage.”
He added that his company didn't have to change the screen design, but
just installed rubber-shielding to protect the machine from aggregate
within it.
The latest models of the Orbit Screen plants are the 68A-1 and 68A-2,
stationary units that can have wheels attached to move around a work
site like a farm implement.
A Simple, Niche Product
Orbit Screens has six employees at its Iowa facility, where they also
do the welding and assembly of their product. All the fabrication is
done in shops around the Delhi area, with the hydraulic components
built by companies all over the country.
His screen plants have been available in many dealerships, but
Schnittjer said that, as his company is in a niche market, he and his
staff have begun moving more of its sales onto the internet.
The simplicity of the machines helps because there are not many wear
parts to them, he added. If a user needs their machine serviced, they
can call the company and typically get a part shipped to them within
one day.
CEG
Reprinted with permission from Construction Equipment Guide.
My personal satisfaction from hearing your stories, continued
purchasing of Bradco products and now, purchasing second and third
Orbital Action machines is beyond imagination.
Here is a link to the original article on CEG's Website
Click for the Pre-Owned Page
Check out the How Do I Get One Page!
Please call or message the Orbital Action Team to update your quote to meet your specific needs. Call 563-922 9230 or email brad@orbitscreens.com
The Intended Use Form is the first step in acquiring one of these awesome machines!
Click here to get started.
Thanks!
Happy screening,
Brad & Crew.
Blog # 105 7/31/2018
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I
will continue my
comments about the many advantages of Orbital Action Screening in my
next Blog. Meanwhile, look over our
Videos and Job Stories
to learn more about Orbital Action
Screening. Our products, with their
user friendly features and high performance levels could take you into
a new season with a much higher profit potential.
Send
us your requirements by filling out and submitting the Intended
Use Form
and you will soon have full details and a quote for the correct model
and available options to fulfill your job application needs
“The
Finer Cut”, is Brad’s Blog. Each issue will cover a topic of interest
about our machines, our industry, our customers and more. I am excited
about the opportunity to use a Blog to broaden our communications with
our customers and industry. I invite you to return and visit from time
to time, cruising through previous issues to learn many details
regarding our products.
I
also invite you, our reader to contribute by offering your comments.
Please send your thoughts to brad@orbitscreens.com,
by letter or fax, 563-922 9060.
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Orbit
Screens, Inc.
722
3rd Street
P.O.
Box 345
Delhi,
Iowa 52223
Phone: 563.922.9230
Email: brad@orbitscreens.com
Orbit Screens® is a
Registered Trade
Mark of Orbit Screens,
Inc.
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