A steep-incline, 3-lane conveyor with a 2-way diverter chute, built to take three separate streams of sorted electronic scrap off an optical sorting machine and carry each of them, unmixed, up a 50-degree incline into tote bins. The diverter on the center lane lets a full bin be swapped without stopping the belt.
The Problem: Three Sorted Streams, One Tight Corner
An optical sorting machine working electronic scrap put out three separate streams at the same time. Each one had to reach a tote bin on the floor, and none of them could touch another on the way there. Material that gets remixed after it has been sorted is not sorted material.
The room made it harder. The sorter's discharge left limited space underneath it, so the receiving end of the conveyor had to sit low. The floor around the machine was already spoken for, so the climb up to tote-bin discharge height had to happen in as little length as possible. And the three streams were not equal: the center lane carried a higher volume than the left and right lanes, so the bin under the center filled first and filled often.
What the Conveyor Had to Do
- Receive three streams side by side, in the space available under the optical sorting equipment's discharge.
- Keep them separate from infeed to discharge, with no cross-contamination between lanes.
- Lift them to tote-bin height without spending floor the plant did not have.
- Let a full center-lane bin be swapped out without stopping the belt, and therefore without stopping the machine feeding it.
How It Was Built
Elbow-up, so one machine does two jobs
The conveyor begins as a low horizontal receiving section and then bends up into the incline — an elbow-up (bend-up) geometry. The horizontal section was designed around the limited space available under the sorter's discharge. Building it as one machine instead of a horizontal conveyor feeding a separate incline conveyor takes out a transfer point, a drive, and a second belt to maintain.
Four corrugated walls make three lanes
The rubber belt carries four corrugated rubber walls down its length, dividing it into three lanes. Remcon builds multi-lane conveyors either this way, with sidewalls on the belt, or with steel dividers mounted above it. Both approaches carry different materials separately on one belt with little or no cross-contamination from infeed to discharge. On this build the walls are carried on the belt, so they travel with the load through the elbow and up the incline.
Cleats and pockets instead of friction
Rubber cleats across the belt carry the material up the incline. Cleats and corrugated sidewalls together form closed pockets, and material in a pocket rides on a shelf rather than on a slope. That is what made 50 degrees possible. For scale: loose mixed material on a smooth belt often wants 15 to 20 degrees before it starts rolling back, a cleated belt on its own is generally effective to about 30, and a catalog Remcon elbow-up slider bed is built to any angle up to 40. Pocketed material will ride anywhere from 0 to 90 degrees. Our guide to maximum conveyor incline angle covers where each of those numbers comes from and what it costs to pass one.
Fifty degrees to buy back floor space
The steep incline is the reason for the rest of the geometry. A shallower conveyor reaching the same discharge height needs more length, and that length is floor the plant does not get back. At 50 degrees, the machine leaves the operator usable floor space that a longer, gentler run would have taken up.
A 2-way diverter chute on the busiest lane
The center lane discharges through a manually operated 2-way diverter chute serving two separate tote bins. When one bin fills, the diverter is flipped over to the other bin and the full one is swapped out while material keeps arriving. The belt does not stop, and neither does the equipment upstream of it. The chute went on the center lane because that is where the volume was; the same chute on a lane that fills a bin once a shift would not have paid for itself.
What That Means for Yours
- Lanes are cheaper than conveyors. When a machine puts out more than one sorted stream, the reflex is one conveyor per stream. Sidewalls or dividers on a single belt do the same work with one frame, one belt, and one drive to maintain — provided the streams are headed for the same part of the building and each one gets its own destination at the discharge.
- A diverter earns its keep wherever a container fills faster than it can be swapped. The same idea shows up on a Remcon baler feed conveyor, where a diverter chute lets a back-up baler take the stream while the main baler is down for maintenance. The interesting question is never the chute. It is what an hour of stopped line costs.
- Steepness is a purchase, not a free upgrade. As a belt tips, the loaded cross-section shrinks and capacity comes down with it, so the same tonnage up a steeper belt wants a wider or faster belt. A pocketed sidewall belt is the most expensive belt on the list, it needs a frame built for it, and it brings its own cleanout. Where the floor exists, a longer and shallower conveyor is the cheaper machine to own for its whole life. Where the floor does not exist, this build is what the alternative looks like.
This one was an OEM job: Remcon designed and built the conveyor around sorting equipment made by someone else, which is most of what our OEM work is. The conveyor has to fit the machine's discharge, its layout, and its duty cycle, none of which we control.
What We Need in Order to Quote One
- How many streams, and how the volume splits between them. The heaviest lane sets the belt width and usually decides where a diverter belongs.
- The material, described honestly, and how wet it gets.
- The headroom under the machine you are receiving from, and the height you have to discharge at.
- The floor length you can give the run. This is what settles whether you need a steep incline at all, or whether ten more feet solves it for less money.
- What it discharges into, and how a full one gets taken away.
Every Remcon conveyor is built to order at our Airway Heights, Washington shop, and our own crews install them nationwide. Tell us the streams, the space, and the containers, and the machine gets drawn to fit them.
3-Lane Diverter Conveyor FAQ
Can one conveyor carry several sorted streams without mixing them?
Yes. A belt can be divided into lanes using belt sidewalls, steel dividers mounted above the belt, or both together, which keeps different materials separated on one belt with little or no cross-contamination from infeed to discharge. This build used four corrugated rubber walls on the belt to make three lanes, with the middle lane's discharge running through a 2-way diverter chute.
How steep can a conveyor with cleats and sidewalls run?
This one runs at 50 degrees. Cleats on their own are generally effective to about 30 degrees, and a Remcon elbow-up slider bed conveyor is built to any angle up to 40. Corrugated sidewalls combined with cross cleats form closed pockets, and pocketed material will ride from 0 to 90 degrees because it sits on a shelf rather than on a slope. The catch is cost: a pocketed sidewall belt is the most expensive belt of the group and needs a frame built for it.
What does a 2-way diverter chute do?
It sends the discharge into either of two containers. When the first fills up, the diverter is flipped to the second and the full container is swapped out while the conveyor keeps running, so a bin change stops being a line stoppage. The chute on this build is manually operated.
Will Remcon build a conveyor around sorting equipment we did not buy from you?
That is the normal case. Remcon designs and builds the infeed and outfeed conveyors, chutes, hoppers, support structures, and controls that integrate with machinery built by other manufacturers, and installs them with our own crews. What we need is how your machine discharges, the space around it, and where the material has to end up.