Guidetti PMG Pre-Shredders

The Guidetti PMG 600 pre-shredder is the compact machine in the PMG range. It opens up electric cable, non-ferrous metals, composites and mixed industrial waste so the stage behind it can accept them, and it does it in a footprint that fits a plant with no spare floor. Engineered Recycling Systems supplies and integrates it from Atlanta.

Why size matters more than throughput here

The 600 is chosen for where it fits as often as for what it processes. In most plants the building is the constraint, not the machine: there is a gap between existing equipment, a ceiling height, and a route material has to take to get in and out.

Throughput runs from 660 to 6,600 lb/h (300 to 3,000 kg/h) depending on material and configuration — a wide band, and where a plant lands inside it is set by what is actually being fed rather than by the specification.

How it cuts

Material is fed manually or automatically into the cutting chamber, where intermeshing blades fragment it at low speed. Low speed is deliberate: it gives uniform particle sizing while keeping dust and noise down, which matters in a building where people are working nearby.

A magnetic pulley or overband separator, available in several sizes, pulls ferrous contamination out before the material reaches further shredding or granulation. That one stage protects everything downstream and is usually worth more than it costs.

Where it sits in the range

The PMG 400 is the step down for lighter duty and tighter spaces. The PMG 900 and PMG 1200 step up on rotor width.

Where the feed is dense or reinforced enough to stall an electric drive, the hydraulic models — PMG 900 H and PMG 1200 H — hold torque at low speed where an electric machine would trip. The PMG 1600 tops the range.

What it feeds

The pre-shredder is stage one and never the whole answer. Behind it sit Sincro granulation lines for cable, dry separation tables for the density split, and hammer mills where final sizing is needed.

Protecting those stages is most of the economic case. A granulator fed oversized material jams, wears fast and produces an inconsistent fragment. Fed a pre-shredded, sized feed it runs at its rated throughput and its knives last, so the saving shows up in wear parts rather than in headline tonnage.

What runs through it

Copper and aluminum cable. Rubber, plastics and paper. Composite scrap and mixed industrial feedstock. E-waste too bulky for a precision machine to take directly.

The common factor is size and resistance rather than material type. If it is too big, too tough or too tangled for the next machine, it goes through a pre-shredder first.

Where it fits in a line

ERS integrates the 600 with conveyors, granulators, air separation and dust extraction, so the stages balance. A pre-shredder that outruns the granulation behind it does not raise output — it relocates the bottleneck somewhere harder to see.

On a compact machine that balance matters more, not less. A small footprint tempts plants to tuck it into a space that makes material handling awkward either side of it, and the handling is usually what limits the line.

Maintenance and what wears

Easy-access panels and a rotary valve system keep material flowing and make inspection straightforward. Sealed bearings, reinforced housings and a control interface built for an operator rather than an engineer suit continuous running with minimal oversight.

Blades and screens are consumables. What decides their real cost is not the price of the part but how long the line stands still while they are changed, which is why access is designed in rather than worked around.

How a project starts

With the material and the building. ERS looks at what arrives, in what volume, what has to be recovered, and the space it has to fit inside — which on this machine is often the deciding factor. Material can be run at the ERS test facility in Atlanta before anything is specified.

Every machine ERS supplies is installed, commissioned and supported by ERS, with spare parts and service from Atlanta. The full Guidetti range is available alongside it.

Talk to ERS about what you are feeding and the space you have for it.