The mighty 10 tonne UNIC mini crane has the power for a National Grid substation lift.
The world’s highest capacity mini spider crane, the UNIC URW-1006, was able to use its impressive reach to carry out essential maintenance work at National Grid’s East Claydon substation in Buckinghamshire, UK.
The 10 tonne capacity spider crane removed and replaced 50kg silencers from the 400kV substation’s circuit breakers. The 16 silencers are regularly removed for cleaning so they can muffle the incredibly loud sound which is made when a circuit opens and air blasts extinguish the arc.
The URW-1006’s generous reach was required to lift each silencer up and over 16 metre high overhead power lines. With the power switched off to all the circuits nearby, the UNIC mini crane’s working area limitation function ensured that the crane could only move within the designated safe zone.
In the past a large city crane with a huge working radius was used to tackle this job, working from the roadside as this was the closest this machine could safely get. The UNIC mini crane’s tracked undercarriage and compact dimensions allowed it to work much closer to the circuit breakers, working at a 11.5 metre radius.
After removing each unit with some help from staff on an access platform, the UNIC URW-1006 returned to East Claydon substation to reinstall the clean silencers.
