A jaw crusher is a heavy piece of machinery and naturally, it costs a lot of money. You are likely to spend tens of thousands of dollars when buying a new jaw crusher and therefore, you have to take several important things into account in order to get the most value for your money.
One of the things you are likely to consider when buying a new crusher is its capacity. Jaw crushers are sold in wide-ranging capacities. These days, you can easily find small jaw crushers that are designed to be portable and to be used in cases where extremely high capacity is not required. Using a jaw crusher of high capacity in such situations will only lead to inefficiency and increase the overall cost of the project.
In the earlier days, it was difficult to find jaw crushers with smaller capacity but things have changed as these days, you can easily find models with smaller capacity. The biggest advantage of using models with smaller jaw crusher capacity is the enhanced efficiency it brings and lower initial cost of the jaw crusher.
When it comes to choosing the right jaw crusher capacity, you shouldn’t buy a crusher without first calculating your exact requirements. The capacity should be chosen based on the amount of material you expect to crush per hour. Another important thing you need to keep in mind is that every manufacturer lists the theoretical capacity of the crusher. Keep in mind that there is a big difference between the theoretical capacity mentioned by the manufacturer and the capacity you are going to get in real-world use.
More often than not, there is going to be a big difference between the theoretical capacity and the real-world capacity. Usually, the real world capacity is a bit lower than the theoretical capacity calculated by the manufacturers. They typically calculate the theoretical capacity on the basis of standard stone size in standard conditions but conditions are never standard when it comes to real world.
In addition to the capacity, there are a couple of other important factors you should consider when buying a jaw crusher. As mentioned in the above paragraphs, a fine jaw crusher is a heavy piece of machinery and has a lot of moving components. Since it uses a lot of force to break down or crush materials, these moving components experience a lot of wear and tear. These components will need to be replaced over time and most of these components do not come cheap.
One of the most common tricks used by companies selling cheap jaw crushers is that they use proprietary parts in their crushers which means you will have to keep going back to them whenever you need to replace a particular component. Since they have a monopoly, they jack up prices for even simple components and that is when you suddenly discover the importance of affordable spare parts. Therefore, it is important for you to make sure that the jaw crusher you are planning to buy has standard components that are easily available everywhere at affordable prices.
To conclude, these days you can buy jaw crushers in wide-ranging capacities. However, you need to consider a couple of other factors in addition to the capacity in order to get the best return on your investment in a jaw crusher. So, keep the above mentioned tips in mind when buying a small jaw crusher to choose the right one for your needs.