Advancing innovation and prioritising safety in mining explosives

Technology developments are yielding far-reaching improvements in safety, sustainability and operational efficiency throughout the mining explosives value chain. For example, AECI Mining Explosives has designed its DigiShot® Ranger to cater specifically for smaller mines, quarries and civil blasting operations, offering inherent safety and improving functionality for operators.

“With over 30 years of experience in pioneering the electronic delay detonator industry and developing class-leading blast initiation technologies, we pride ourselves on developing innovative solutions in the initiating systems and commercial explosives space,” says Ashlin Pillay, Product Portfolio Manager – Electronic Initiation Systems at AECI Mining Explosives.

The company has tested its electronics extensively. “For example, we’ve subjected them to high voltage to simulate a lightning strike. The detonators remained uninitiated due to the designed protective circuitry. We’ve ensured by design that our detonators are only initiated by our control equipment,” says Pillay.

DigiShot® Ranger

In line with inherently safe design principles, the DigiShot® Ranger’s built-in long-range antenna enables the system to transmit a safe encrypted blasting signal up to 3km away from the blast, as long as line of sight is maintained. This affords the user options to blast remotely if required, meaning fewer people are in close proximity to a potentially hazardous area during blasting times.

“We’ve been working tirelessly to improve our offering for mid-tier open cast mines, civil blasting activity and quarrying operations,” says Pillay. “The original DigiShot® system is a reputable and accomplished product. The new system keeps the portability and ease-of-use of the original DigiShot® system requiring minimal training, but the DigiShot® Ranger doubles the detonator capacity (600 detonators vs the original’s 300), and gives the operator flexible tagging options, plus automatic detonator detection.”

The DigiShot® Ranger works with AECI’s fourth-generation detonators. This enables storage of a wide variety of data on the detonator and tagger, including bench activity. The last detonator check function also ensures all detonators on the string receive the blast command.

LogShot®, a complementary software package, informs users of the blasting activity and allows the operators to extract detailed, post-blast, activity logs. “This is useful for consolidating the activity of the blast itself, along with the inventory management of detonators, while highlighting typical problems users may have experienced,” says Pillay. “The DigiShot® Ranger also logs user interface activity, making it easy to conduct operator safety audits as it can also be used to determine if there is supplementary operator training required.”

Customers can now easily build their own blast library on ViewShot® Express, detailing blast design parameters, which may be used for future blasts in similar geological conditions. This is an important safety aspect, but can also help to improve operational efficiencies.

Attention has been given to the device ergonomics and user-friendliness, with the DigiShot® Ranger offering improvements in both areas. The flexibility in tagging methods defines multiple options for the user to select when tagging to allow for both traditional tagging (for users who are comfortable with this methodology), as well as the more modern tag-by plan option (where the blast design is created on the ViewShot® Express and downloaded to the CE4 tagger via USB or WiFi). The latter allows for tagging on-bench with delay and location from the pre-designed blast plan, which mitigates user input errors.

With smarter tagging methodologies, movement on the bench can be reduced and optimised. The tagger has been designed to function as an inherently safe device and cannot generate the required blast voltage or blast commands to initiate the blast – the blast command is stored in a Near Field Communication (NFC) Blast Card.

“As a responsible supplier, we also focus on recovering equipment at the end of its life cycle, managing the responsible disposal of the entire system. The DigiShot® Ranger evolution is just one example of AECI Mining Explosives’ holistic and flexible approach, which aims to help customers on their unique journey to better blasting outcomes,” says Pillay.