Drill Information Systems
Drill Monitoring and Guidance
Thunderbird's DRILLING EFFICIENCY INDICATOR (DEI ™) was introduced to the mining industry in 1982, and since has been installed worldwide on hundreds of blasthole drills. The DEI product line has proven to be an extremely reliable tool that will increase a mine's productivity, reduce overall drilling costs and improve the blasting efficiency. In 2001, a newly designed DEI Plus was introduced to replace the DEI and to provide a great deal more information to the drill operator. Subsequently, the DEI + Logger was developed to replace Thunderbird's Stratalogger and allows the operator to log critical drilling performance indicators. This logged data is converted into meaningful information and reports using the Thunderbird office software.
In 2008, Thunderbird introduced the new IMS Mobile family of products for blasthole drills including HPGPS Drill Guidance. Those products are now successfully operating in several mines in North and South America.
The Thunderbird High Precision guidance system was introduced to the mining industry at the 2008 MINEXPO show. During 2009, two prototype systems were deployed at Barrick's Goldstrike and Lagunas Norte mines. These systems had a number of unique features including built-in cameras for additional safety and productivity, and radio remote controls with a secondary operator display for navigation and drill performance monitoring. Subsequent systems have been sold and deployed at Barrick's Bald Mountain operation near Elko, Nevada. International sales to Chile, Kazakhstan and the Ukraine have increased the population by 40+ systems.
Product Links and Complete Details
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DEI Plus is the latest in a long line of rotary blasthole drill monitoring products from Thunderbird. It is a completely redesigned version of the original Drilling Efficiency Indicator (DEI) and provides the operator with a great deal more information than was available from the DEI. |
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DEI-X is the latest addition to Thunderbird’s family of drill
monitors for rotary blasthole drills that date back to the early 1980s. It is
truly a revolutionary product with features and capability unmatched in the
industry. These include Wi-Fi connections to the mine office, displaying drill
pattern maps to the operator, strata-logging, cameras, and logging hole
position with LPGPS. The DEI-X platform can also be readily upgraded to a
Drill Guidance system for those mines that may require a navigation system
at some point in the future. |
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DEI+NAV With the introduction of Thunderbird’s DEI+Nav HPGPS Guidance system, a new standard for blasthole drill instrumentation has been established. The DEI+Nav has been designed from the ground up by a team that pioneered the development of the first drill monitoring and GPS navigation systems. This experience has allowed the team to design a lower priced system with many unique features not available in competitive systems that will provide its mining customers with a higher rate of return on their investment.
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DEI After more than 20 years, the DEIs were taken out of production and have been replaced by the DEI Plus. However, hundreds of DEIs are still in operation, and Thunderbird continues to repair and service the DEIs, as well as supply spare parts for the systems. The original DEI systems can be easily upgraded to DEI Plus systems. |
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