Ponderings on a radical high banker design

[Gold:Au]

I will preface this post by stating that I have never used a high banker. But having said that, the maker of a recent youtube video I watched made a statement lamenting the fact that the problem with them is that there is no feedback on the richness of the dirt being shovelled in until you do a clean-up.

Now, I have been investing a lot of time recently into designing a wash-plant, and coming up with novel solutions to problems that don't exist and one of the many I dismissed as being a stupid idea may actually be a solution to this problem.

Imagine vortex matting running the length of a high banker sluice. Instead of ending at the discharge of the sluice, it is a conveyor loop that wraps around a tail drum before running up the underside to then wrap around the head drum and connecting to the top edge of the matting.

You run the sluice as normal, with slurry coming off a slick plate and being dumped onto the upper section of vortex matting, flowing down the matting before flowing over the tail drum end discharge.

Once you have finished a section of dirt, you turn the water off, place a pan of water under the tail drum so that part of the matting is submerged, then just pull the matting down and around the drum so that it cleans itself into the pan, leaving a new section of matting ready to go.

This means a "cleanout" can be done in literally seconds, allowing the user to regularly check how much gold they are getting.

There will be extra weight and complexity of course, more than twice the amount of matting, tail and head rollers, a redesign of the top end slurry handling, but it may be a useful product.

What says the brains trust?

 

[russau]

In your post you didn't mention any classification diameter's of "drum"(trommel) . what would keep the fines from getting blown out of the sluice while trying to keep the nuggets (if you were to have that problem!)

 

[Mine Shaft]

Do you have any Blue Prints in the making ?

 

[IDAu]

I wouldn’t use it. Sounds like a lot of weight and extra stuff to break. The first section of v mat in mine is a good indicator.

The more experience I get with different stuff the more I think people are trying to reinvent the wheel. And the more I go back to whats Worked forever. I have a stack of dream Matt collecting dust I won’t even put my gold cube because I don’t see the point.

But it’s cool to tinker and problem solve.

 

[Gold:Au]

In your post you didn't mention any classification diameter's of "drum"(trommel) . what would keep the fines from getting blown out of the sluice while trying to keep the nuggets (if you were to have that problem!)

You would run it as you would run a standard high banker, this modification is to the way the matting is used.

Do you have any Blue Prints in the making ?

Just in my head, I have no intention of following through with this idea as I do not use high bankers.

I wouldn’t use it. Sounds like a lot of weight and extra stuff to break. The first section of v mat in mine is a good indicator.

The more experience I get with different stuff the more I think people are trying to reinvent the wheel. And the more I go back to whats Worked forever. I have a stack of dream Matt collecting dust I won’t even put my gold cube because I don’t see the point.

But it’s cool to tinker and problem solve.

Yeah, I hear ya, this is my thinking as well. But if someone is tinkering and problem solving and this concept leads them to a solution, then I thought it would be good to get it out there into their ideas toolbox.

 

[Oregon Viking]

I'm building a larger version of this and it cleans out fairly quick!

 

[russau]

Good video !

 

[Oregon Viking]

Good video !

It's kind of long and I'm not tech enough to only show just the cleanout.