The blower

A proto type blower actually exploded causing serious injury to two miners. There were two miners underground and two on the surface. Instructions from below were given to rev the motor more to get extra suction from this proto type machine. The poorly balanced fan, inside a cast iron fan housing, disintegrated sending pieces of fan and housing in all directions.

Knud Nexo built the first commercially available machine in 1973 and has since produced more than 100.

These machines, that should be called a sucker, are basically a large fan driven by a powerful diesel motor. It creates a suction that sucks the opal dirt up a 250mm pipe into a cyclone. The cyclone separates the dirt from the dust by centrifugal force. The dust is exhausted skyward and the opal dirt is automatically dropped into a truck.

The high pitch scream of these machines can be heard miles away from the opal fields. They also produce a lot of dust. By about 2009 these machines may be disallowed on the opal fields because of the noise and dust pollution.

blower back to mining industry