Cotton Ginning Solutions

 SierraSpray - Moisture Restoration

SierraTek’s revolutionary moisture restoration system SierraSpray has been designed and perfected over many years of experience and live trials to give the best in class atomizing technology. Moisture is added back into the lint through the SierraSpray System as a fine mist of liquid water before bailing. 

Specifically developed for the cotton industry, SierraSpray is designed to replace, or work in tandem with traditional humidification moisture restoration equipment to improve the accuracy and consistency of the finished bale moisture. Having a consistent moisture content in the final stages of the ginning process greatly improves the reliability of the pressing and strapping processes and helps create a more consistent product overall for the market. 

With the addition of the SierraSpray Moisture Restoration system to your ginning operation, you will increase performance and bale consistency, reduce downtime and maintenance, and improve overall ginning efficiency. 

The SierraSpray Moisture Restoration System has been designed for maximum Return On Investment (ROI). SierraSpray will reduce the input energy requirement for moisture restoration by up to 70%. The water added back into the lint further shortens the ROI as the weight of this water adds quantifiable value to each finished bale. Through negligible input cost and in real world examples, the SierraSpray system has consistently delivered net returns of over AU$5 per bale. Contact us for more information and quotes.

 SierraAnalytics - Reporting Package

Our gin management software packages are industry leading, providing smart solutions on every level. Our programs are designed to fully integrate all available data from virtually any source to track and document the product all the way from picker to port.

Our advanced reporting packages can provide automated and detailed shift reports for site management, empowering managers to make smart decisions on plant optimisation and help identify problem areas before they occur. Having this information at your fingertips gives a far greater level of situational awareness, which greatly improves production, operational efficiency, and ultimately the bottom line. 

Our reporting tool can also provide automated and detailed production reports for growers and customers. These reports are fully customisable to show grower, picker and process data required. The reports can be used to build trust and show transparency to your customers, but also provide the evidence that your ginners are doing everything in their power to provide the best possible quality outcome for your customers

 SierraPressRotator - Electric Press Box Rotator 

One of the biggest bottlenecks of any cotton gin is the press area. This is an area with lots of moving parts, and where gin owners and operators are always looking for ways to improve. Any reduction in bale pressing cycle time directly increases the gin bale rate, throughput, and ultimately shortens the ginning season. 

SierraTek’s Electric Press Box Rotator is a direct replacement of the traditional hydraulic rotator and is an absolute game changer for the cotton industry. Our team of experts can help drastically reduce the press cycle time and through real world examples we have achieved our benchmark results of 4 seconds from unlatch-to-latch. This in some examples has reduced the cycle time by 8 seconds per bale, which, if you do the math, over the course of a 55,000-bale season could reduce ginning by 5 full days, improving gin efficiency, performance, and reliability. 

The SierraTek Electric Box Rotator is designed to work in tandem with your existing press control system with minimal integration requirements, utilising a lot of the existing rotator control. The onboard controller handles the technical operation and is a ‘set-and-forget’ system.

Our Rotator Solution can be customised to suit the needs of the customer and their site requirements. Safety Systems can also be integrated to suit any existing or new site safety device or interlocking system. Thes Rotator can be supplied with installation instructions and installed by your local contractor or SierraTek can install and commission with our experienced team.

 SierraSpark - Fire Detection System

The SierraSpark fire detection system employs the latest cutting edge technology and advanced control algorithms to reduce your gin fire risk, and to drastically minimise the impact of fire to your ginning operations. Gin fires are always going to be an issue, but it is about how you manage the event that can make all the difference. Strategically placed spark detectors positioned throughout the cotton ginning process will detect a potential fire at the spark or ember stage, within milliseconds of detection our advanced alarming and automated corrective actions will initiate control measures to significantly reduce downtime and damage. 

SierraSpark will make smart decisions when a spark or ember is detected, isolating the affected cotton and removing it from the processing line before it spreads and becomes uncontrollable. This early stage detection and action is an incredible advancement in ginning technology which generally can pay for itself within the first fire it prevents. The system will alert the operators of exactly where the fire was detected and automatically intitate the required action. 

Through many years of experience, SierraTek has perfected the SierraSpark control system to reduce down time and equipment damage due to gin fires. Our cotton gin control solutions and technology are industry leading, tried, tested, and perfected in some of the harshest ginning environments in the world.

 SierraGin - Cotton Ginning SCADA

SierraGin is a fully customised SCADA control system from SierraTek that brings numerous advantages to your Cotton Gin, including a greater efficient use of energy and time, more insightful control of your Cotton Gin and brings all of your equipment into a single cohesive system. 

The SierraGin SCADA system allows a single Ginner to both control and monitor an entire Cotton Gin from a single screen, the whole gin is represented graphically and issues are communicated in a very intuitive way. The SCADA system can be adapted to integrate all your ex-isting equipment, every drive in the gin, as well as air compressors, mote plant and weighers can all be brought into a single SCADA system for monitoring and control. 

SierraTek’s SCADA system includes smart algorithms for consistent production and full interlocking of equipment to prevent choking, intuitive interface for operators, advanced troubleshooting and alarming is standard.SierraTek’s SCADA system can be extended to monitor if equipment is being used and automatically bring it down to idle speed if the feed is removed for a set period of time. Equipment can also be made to auto-shutdown if idle for extended periods.