Following the release of several new products at bauma 2025 in Munich earlier this year, MCA talks to Jonathan Rogoff, the CEO of Tru-Trac Rollers, about the company’s innovations for rip detection, weighing accuracy, self-adjusting belt alignment and AI-based proactive maintenance.
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Tru-Trac introduced a new belt-scale innovation at bauma 2025 featuring AI integration that combines RIP Prevent+ intelligence with advanced weighing technology.
At Electra Mining Africa last year, Tru-Trac Rollers showcased its dynamic weighing systems to help belt operators better manage material flow rates, along with its newly released AI-based Rip-Prevent system, developed with European partner company, SHG. “At bauma 2025, we introduced a new belt-scale innovation with AI integration, which merges the AI principles developed for the RIP Prevent+ system with our belt-scale solution,” Jonathan Rogoff, CEO of Tru-Trac Rollers, tells MCA.
Tru-Trac’s new AI Intelligent Belt Scale has incorporated a mass-flow estimation functionality, which, if calibrated using a known weight, can be used to maintain the accuracy of a Tru-Trac belt scale and to alert users to calibration drift and load cell deterioration.
Rogoff explains: “There is an ongoing need for belt-scales to be regularly calibrated to maintain their weighing accuracy. These systems generally have two or four load cells, depending on the accuracy required, which is typically around 1.0% for a basic scale with two load cells, and up to 0.1% for a high-accuracy four-load-cell Tru-Trac scale. But these become inaccurate over time, if not regularly calibrated.”
RIP Prevent+, he says, continuously collects data from the drive motor, which is fed into an AI analyser to determine real-time power consumption, belt speed, belt load and many other parameters, primarily to determine the onset of belt ripping. By extending the scope of the analysis, however, this AI system can detect when the belt is running empty or loaded, and it can provide consistent accuracy with respect to the mass flow of material across the belt – down to 2.5% if calibrated with a known weight, with accuracy errors as low as 0.4% having been detected.
This easily accessible and continuously available information is ideal for monitoring the health and accuracy of Tru-Trac’s belt weighing systems, Rogoff adds. “It is difficult to predict when a load cell on a belt scale starts to become inaccurate. So the scales tend to be calibrated fairly frequently, typically every two to four weeks,” he says.
But this involves shutting down production, and it may be unnecessary. Also, a load cell may fail prematurely before a scheduled check, which may cause under- or over-billing until the problem is discovered and the load cell is replaced.
“Belt weighing is also required for blending different material streams, so if the calibration of the scale is off, the material mix is going to be wrong, which may result in costly downstream implications,” he says.
The Belt Scale monitoring feature integrated into Tru-Trac’s new upgraded RIP Prevent+ system is a proactive way of continuously monitoring, not only the accuracy of the belt scale, but also the health of individual load cells. “We've developed a smart junction box that takes inputs from each load cell. If we detect an anomaly between the consistent AI-based mass flow result and the Tru-Trac belt scale result, we are then able to interrogate individual load cells to see which one is out of calibration or failing. So we no longer have to test each cell to find a fault or to confirm load cell balancing.
The information is also continually fed into the AI RIP Prevent+ monitoring system, which displays the health of each load cell and the accuracy status of the scale, among several other valuable parameters.
Reporting and proactive maintenance
By tracking gradual failures in load cells, proactive maintenance can be scheduled to minimise disruption, with calibration intervals scheduled only when needed. In addition, once a fault in an individual load cell has been detected, the AI-based weighing system can compensate for mass flow errors by aggregating data from other cells, ensuring that billing remains accurate until the scale can be conveniently serviced.
Tru-Trac is also currently using the AI platform to build in advanced reporting metrics. “With all of the data already available, we are now adding real-time conveyor belt performance functionality to the system, which includes tonnage per day versus targets and the ‘black belt’ periods where the belt is running unloaded and inefficiently. All the relevant metrics that an operator would want to get from a belt from a productivity and efficiency point of view are now being incorporated into the reporting menu of the RIP Prevent+,” he adds.
In addition, by feeding additional information from sensors into the RIP Prevent+ system, we are now able to monitor the health of the gearbox, bearings, and the return belt scrapers. Tru-Trac is further expanding the proactive maintenance capability of this easily installed, low-investment, AI-based system.
One vibration sensor on the return belt scraper enables Tru-Trac to monitor whether the scraper is in contact with the belt and successfully removing carry-back material and preventing spillages and contamination. As the scraper begins to wear close to the point of losing contact, a change in the vibration signature is detected, alerting operators to the need for a replacement or service. Similarly, adding a sensor to the gearbox gives clients another simple proactive maintenance tool on this vital component of their conveyors.
“Ultimately, we see this system as offering a comprehensive advanced reporting and predictive maintenance solution for conveyor belt operators, including pre-emptive rip prevention, proactive maintenance of belt scales; misalignment detection, drive and gearbox health reports, and productivity and belt efficiency tracking – all of which make a significant contribution to successful, cost-effective and efficient belt utilisation,” he says.
New Apex trough and return trackers
Also introduced at bauma were Tru-Trac’s new Apex trough and return trackers, which feature moulded rubber with a new tread-pattern design for better traction. “The belt tracker steers the conveyor belt, so it must maintain good traction between the tracker and the belt. This new moulded tread pattern delivers better adhesion and therefore better tracking performance on the trackers,” he explains.
In addition, a new self-adjusting bracket has been developed to automatically tension the conveyor tracker to the belt. Previously, this tension would have had to be manually adjusted to a fixed tension. Now we have included a spring mechanism that enables the tension to be set via a single bolt, using a built-in indicator to ensure the correct tension is applied. Once set, the tension on either side of the tracker maintains optimal tracking performance,” Rogoff tells MechChem Africa.
These designs have been successfully tested and have proved to be effective at the busy Richards Bay Coal Terminal. “We are continually evolving our product offering, adding new features and improvements that we know will improve conveyor performance, reliability and uptime.
“At bauma 2025, our innovations received strong interest from the international market. We are determined to maintain Tru-Trac’s leadership position in belt tracking and innovation, and we will continue to expand and improve our current product range and to develop new products to better meet the needs of conveyor belt operators,” he concludes.