J.H;
Fletcher;
Co;
a builder of underground mobile drilling;
scaling and roof support equipment;
has developed an electronic drilling feedback system for its mobile roof drills which monitors and reacts to drilling parameters. The system employs transducers to monitor drilling forces and regulate valve outputs according to a dedicated microprocessor program. The use of feedback to record and display a roof map of a mine entry is a significant advancement in roof control. The machine operator as well as mine engineer;
can have access to roof control information as the roof is being drilled. The operator can have knowledge before the bolt is installed;
if there are questionable strata at the point of bolt anchorage;
and have opportunity to drill deeper for an alternate bolt length;