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I ran my cutterhead at full tilt for years before a pump failure in Galveston showed me why that's dumb.

We lost suction on a big channel job because I was chewing up material too fast for the pumps to keep up, which overheated the whole system. The foreman pointed at the temp gauge and said, 'You're feeding a fire hose with a bucket.' How do you guys find that sweet spot between cutter speed and pump flow on different soils?
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thomasm15
thomasm1510d ago
Ouch, that's a rough way to learn. I usually start by backing the cutter off until the pump pressure looks happy, then creep it up. It's all about watching that suction gauge more than the dirt.
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jakeb25
jakeb2510d ago
Listen to the mud's sound more than the gauges, like @thomasm15 hinted at.
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