Vecoplan’s VPC 1600 is an efficient pre-shredder for voluminous objects and bulky wooden items

With its large and powerful single-shaft shredders, Vecoplan offers efficient solutions for reliably processing voluminous wooden items such as pallets in continuous operation. However, until now, a larger VAZ series machine had to be used for large and bulky items – and this also required a correspondingly larger installation area than the new combined solution with the VHZ 1600 and VPC 1600. “In addition to the large amount of space required, there’s also another point to consider – the throughput is relatively low if we feed these pallets directly to a shredder,” says Ralf Rosenkranz, Area Sales Manager for Vecoplan’s Wood | Biomass division. The reason for this is that “a lot of air is between the material“ due to the design of the pallets with their spaced boards and skids, so the shredding process takes a relatively long time.

There has been a considerable increase in the demands placed upon material and distribution centres in particular and on American DIY stores that often use disposable pallets – and this is why the machine manufacturing company from the Westerwald decided to develop an efficient pre-shredder, the Vecoplan VPC 1600 pallet crusher. “We set ourselves the goal of increasing throughput capacity by up to 50% for the shredding of bulky pallets and even large boxes – and we have achieved that goal,” says Rosenkranz. These items are crushed, not cut in the VPC. This creates enormous advantages in the shredding process, and the customer benefits from reduced quantities of wearing parts

With its working width of 1,600 millimetres, the 800 millimetre-high VPC fits exactly onto the VHZ. A sliding frame connects the shredder and the pre-shredder. The VPC is permanently fixed during operation. For example, if the machine or plant operator has to change the counter-knives in the shredder, he can easily move the 5.5-tonne VPC. “A crane would have been too time-consuming and costly,” says Rosenkranz.

The filler port of the new pre-shredder measures 1,605 x 1,605 millimetres and the drive power is 2 x 9.2 kilowatts. Sixteen counter-crushers have been integrated into the machine and it also has two independently running rotors, each with a speed of ten revolutions per minute. “If an over-torque occurs briefly during operation, the two rotors can reverse independently of each other. This ensures an efficient and continuous process flow,” concludes Rosenkranz.