Hoping to shine a light on the evolution of safety equipment in the mining industry, Sudbury’s Jannatec Radio Technologies will soon unveil the world’s first focusable LED mining cap lamp.
Currently in testing throughout Sudbury-area mines, this improved version of the company’s widely popular Johnny Light will begin production in the second week of October.
“This innovation could translate to cost savings for companies and a safer environment for employees,” says Wayne Ablitt, managing partner with Jannatec.
“We’ve already seen a lot of industry interest in it thus far, which tells us we’re on the right track.”
While most standard cap lamps feature a hotspot or strongest point of illumination at 1.2 metres, the new light can be adjusted to extend that hotspot to greater distances, such as a rock ceiling 50 feet away.
The new unit will also feature an angled hood reflector, which will illuminates both forward and downward. This allows for the ground at one’s feet to be seen as well as the path ahead.
The LED component also offers the opportunity for saving on replacement costs given its longer life, Ablitt says.
The incandescent bulb which is the current standard for cap lamps currently lasts roughly 400 hours and costs $14.10 each. This means every miner goes through five or six bulbs throughout the course of a given year.
Multiply that by the increasingly large number of miners working underground throughout Northern Ontario, and the replacement costs are significant, he says.
Conversely, the new LED lights for the cap lamp have a life of 10,000 hours, meaning that at an average of 2,000 to 2,500 hours of work per year, the average miner will find the lamp lasting up to five years.
Ablitt estimates that, for a company the size of Vale Inco, annual savings would work out to roughly $850,000.
However, this move to LED has presented a few challenges which in turn have mandated some design changes. For instance, a heat sink was needed to absorb the thermal energy projected to the rear of the unit, as opposed to ahead of the unit, which is the case with standard bulbs.
The improved Johnny Light also features a raft of changes to other elements of its core model beyond the lighting mechanism, including tweaks to the batteries and charging system.
Gone are the nickel-metal hydride batteries, replaced with lithium ferro phosphate batteries. This provides twice the life of the prior units and reduces the weight by half, making it easier to wear for greater lengths of time.
With an eye on moving into the global market, Jannatec is also looking to have its Johnny Light technology meet with certain American regulatory standards, including the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA).
This will allow its products to be moved into the United States coal mining market, which has some problems comparable to the Canadian mining industry. From there, Jannatec will also look to make a potential move into various European markets.
A partnership with Montreal-based Newtrax and its sister company, Simsmart, has also allowed Jannatec to be involved in a new Ventilation on Demand (VOD) system.
As GPS doesn’t work in underground environments, Newtrax has developed a system involving battery-powered wireless tracking through mobile nodes that can easily be put up by non-technical personnel. The Quebec company’s technology has already adopted by the Canadian military for use in surveillance efforts, though the challenges are applicable to mining as well, says its founder and CEO, Alexandre Cervinka.
“One of the main strengths of this in mining is that it can operate on a leaky feeder system,” says Cervinka. “It fills the gap between the existing infrastructure in the mines and what’s needed for the future.”
This technology has since been incorporated into Jannatec’s cap lamps and collision avoidance systems, allowing the computerized system to track each and determine where ventilation is needed.
It then automatically reduces it where it’s less necessary and increases where activity is actually taking place. This can represent significant savings, says Ablitt, as up to half of an underground mine’s energy consumption can stem from ventilation, representing as much as $30 million annually for larger mines.
“It’s a great partnership,” says Cervinka. “It creates a complete package of miner safety, collision avoidance and more efficient ventilation.”
