Equipment purchase costs conveyors

Conveying-screen dryers are fabricated with conveyor widths from 0.3- to 4.4-m sections 1.6 to 2.5 m long. Each section consists of a sheet-metal enclosure, insulated sidewalls and roof, heating coils, a circulating fan, inlet air distributor baffles, a fines catch pan under the conveyor, and a conveyor screen (Fig. 12-51). Table 12-23 gives approximate purchase costs for equipment with type 304 staimess-steel hinged conveyor screens and includes steam-coil heaters, fans, motors, and a variable-speed conveyor drive. Cabinet and auxiliary equipment fabrication is of aluminized steel or stainless-steel materials. Prices do not include temperature controllers, motor starters, preform equipment, or auxiliary feed and discharge conveyors. These may add 75,000 to 160,000 to the dryer purchase cost (2005 costs). 

Custom -designed conveyors take two forms. Standard components and their variants can be assembled in many ways to satisfy specific lengths and inlet and outlet requirements, to tailor a conventional conveyor to suit a specific insfallafion. The other extreme is an individually designed machine that incorporates special features or techniques to be purpose-built for a particular function or duty. The cost of the latter type may be significantly more than a unit constructed from standard components but, as with many items involved in the handling of bulk solids, reliable and efficient performance is paramount. Notional savings on capital cost can involve losses that far exceed any purchase cost difference if the equipment does not work well. 

Capital equipment costs refer to the cost of the equipment and are sometimes a bit difficult to define. For example, a microwave drying system may increase the throughput of a product dramatically and thereby necessitate the purchase of additional packaging equipment, conveyors, feed systems, and the like. In that case, the overall capital outlay would be much higher than for the microwave dryer alone. 

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