How to Customize a Self-Dumping Hopper for Your Business Needs

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Hoppers are versatile pieces of equipment that can be customized to meet your specific needs within a manufacturing plant, facility or factory. In fact, that's the best thing about hoppers - their versatility and ability to adapt to your environment when needed. You probably bought a self-dumping hopper or two to increase your rate of production and make it easier for people to do their jobs. Well, you can take that ease of use one step further and customize the equipment itself to adjust to your needs.

Mobility

In a fast-paced plant, time is of the essence. The faster you can transport, dump, load, and unload means less time struggling and more time making money by being productive. One way to get from point A to point B is to make your self-dumping hopper mobile through the use of caster wheels. You can often pick and choose various caster wheel combinations to transform your stationary hopper into one that can be rolled here and there. You may see sets that include two casters that swivel in the back, with two fixed ones in the front. Perhaps you want one that has all four wheels with brake options. These wheels also come in a variety of materials, too, such as polyurethane and rubber, that make for quiet operations and high impact resistance, and that won't make marks on your flooring.

Base Coverage

Specialty bases are a big way to customize your hoppers, whether you need open channel, boxed tube bases or three-way fork entry bases. You can make modifications to the base models of self-dumping hoppers by adding base legs, reinforcements, closed-fork pockets, or fork-pocket dimensions that only your business uses.

Easy Identification

Customizing your self-dumping hoppers and their accessories can be taken one step further through color coding to easily and quickly identify between different hoppers and what they can be used for. By utilizing custom color combinations, you can quickly tell the difference between models, which is key in easy ID by your workers while on the job. No extra time is lost trying to determine which hopper is used for which purpose.

Protection

For those hoppers that must remain outside or that are present in a wet or moist environment, you can purchase special covers that can provide a water-tight steel lid perfect for those heavy-duty jobs. For lighter-weight jobs, you can go with plastic, or even mesh and vinyl tarps so you can easily take them off when needed.

Customized Models

Of course, you can always have a custom self-dumping hopper manufactured from scratch if you have a specific function in mind that you can't find on the open market. From recycling and dewatering hoppers to lined and open-side hoppers, you can work with the manufacturer of your choice to come up with the best option for you.

About the Author:

This article is written by Mike Genter, who is associated with Roura Material Handling. Roura Material Handling produces a large variety of self-dumping hoppers including durable hoppers, rugged hoppers, ultimate hoppers, behemoth hoppers as well as custom and specialty dumping hoppers for both commercial and industrial use.