Mechani Mags Delivers Compact Dry Magnets to Cramped Plants

As the South African production calendar turns toward the last quarter of 2026, plant teams are locking in the shutdown slots that have to see them through to December, and protecting conveyors is one job that keeps climbing the priority list. Mechani Mags, the conveyor magnet manufacturer operating out of Bisset Road in JetPark, Boksburg, is taking the approach to year end as a chance to highlight a corner of its range that many plant engineers wrongly write off as out of reach: the low head-room variant of its dry-type overband magnet, alongside oil to dry conversions of units already in service and the spares and auxiliaries that keep an installed magnet in production.

The problem it addresses is entirely practical. To do its job, a suspended overband belt magnet needs to sit above a conveyor with adequate clearance, and in plants built to a tight layout, or where additional equipment has later been squeezed in above or beside the belt line, that clearance is simply absent. What follows is a stretch of conveyor with no ferrous protection at all, not through any reluctance on the operator's part, but because a standard suspended unit cannot physically be accommodated. Among the headline features of its dry-type magnet, Mechani Mags lists a low head-room model, and its products page notes that magnets can be adapted to fit into restricted spaces.

What the dry-type magnet does on a conveyor line

Magnetic separators earn their place on a conveyor for a single purpose, namely pulling ferrous tramp metal out of a moving stream of material before it reaches anything costly. A dropped bolt, a snapped tooth, a length of rebar or a fragment of some earlier repair heading into a crusher, a mill or a screen is precisely the kind of incident that converts a planned week into an unplanned one. Mechani Mags describes its dry-type units as suspended self-cleaning over-band belt magnets designed to lift tramp metal out of conveyed materials across mining, processing and recycling, and it frames them as conveyor cleaning and protection equipment rather than material upgrading equipment.

Continuous operation comes from the self-cleaning arrangement. The overband belt carries captured metal off the face of the magnet and discharges it clear of the conveyor, allowing the magnet to keep working without anyone stopping the line to strip it by hand. The same magnet is also available from Mechani Mags in a manual-clean version, suited to applications where the tramp metal loading is light enough that a scheduled clean will do.

Why the dry design changed the retrofit conversation

Earlier overband electromagnets relied on oil cooling, and oil carries its own baggage: contamination should a seal give way, corrosion, the added weight of the unit, and the maintenance downtime that fluid management demands. Today's generation from Mechani Mags is built with neither oil nor cooling fans. According to the company, the dry design earns a premium energy efficiency rating equivalent to the IE4 standard and runs 50 percent more energy efficient than standard models, producing the same magnetic power on half the electrical input.

The product page spells out the engineering behind this. Rectangular cross-section aluminium coils are insulated to Class H at 180 degrees Celsius. The unit is fitted with a stainless steel wear plate and internally welded lifting lugs, runs a WEG IE3 motor paired with an SEW gearbox, and turns on four crowned carbon steel pulleys. A belt-slip and belt-tear detection system operates in tandem with a PT100 temperature probe, so the magnet flags its own condition instead of failing without warning. Rated IP66, the housing is fully protected against dust and water, and the magnet is designed to run at any position and incline angle, inverted included. Where installations are underground or otherwise hazardous, the unit can be supplied Ex certified.

Oil to dry conversion without rebuilding the power supply

Plants still operating an older oil-cooled overband unit are offered a conversion path in place of a full replacement project. Mechani Mags says it can generally convert an existing oil-cooled electromagnet into an equivalent strength dry-type electromagnet without any need to alter existing power supply units. For a shutdown plan that counts, since the cost and the programme risk in an upgrade of this sort normally lie in the electrical work and the structural steel rather than in the magnet itself.

The workshop offering follows the same logic. Magnets of any make or brand are repaired and upgraded by Mechani Mags, not just its own, and the company states that its Boksburg workshop can take on any size magnet up to 20 tons. Loan units may be on hand while a customer's own magnet is being serviced, workmanship is guaranteed, and a faulty magnet sent to the JetPark workshop qualifies for a free assessment with a strip and quote, or the company will arrange to collect it.

Detection and removal are different jobs

Conveyor metal detector equipment tends to come up in the same conversation as overband magnets, yet the two functions are worth pulling apart when a plant maps out its protection strategy. A detector alerts the control room that metal is on the belt and can trip a stop or a diverter. A magnet physically lifts the ferrous fraction out of the material stream and discharges it. Mechani Mags operates on the removal side of that pair, and its site assessment service sets out to establish what a given conveyor and material stream genuinely require before any equipment is specified.

The wider product range

Dry magnetic separator units may be the flagship of the range, but they belong to a much wider catalogue. Built around rare earth magnet elements, the ferrochrome magnet is made to separate ferrochrome from slag. Lifting magnets come as extra heavy duty sealed units for scrap handling, ball loading and furnace loading, with a choice of duty cycles, and the company states plainly that these are not meant for suspension over conveyor belts. Demagnetising coils are provided to demagnetise material passing through the centre of the coils, while drum magnets or magnetic pulleys carry out separation as material discharges over the head end of a belt. Fan-cooled electromagnets and the older oil-cooled self-clean and manual-clean overband types stay on the list too, together with permanent magnets and fully custom designs.

Auxiliaries and spares keep the installed base running

A magnet sitting idle because a gearbox or a run of belting cannot be found is a magnet protecting nothing. To that end, Mechani Mags stocks power supply units suited to any mains supply voltage up to 1000VAC at 50 or 60Hz, control panels compatible with almost any electromagnet system, three-phase heavy duty solid-state bridge rectifiers and suitable DC cabling. Adjustable suspension chain slings arrive complete with rating and identification tags plus a certificate of compliance. Beam crawlers and trolleys come in motorised, non-motorised and geared-chain-pull versions, alongside spring-driven cable reeling drums and festoon systems for DC cable runs. Replacement parts span belts, pulleys, gearboxes, motors, bearings, shafts, couplings and DC terminal poles. Type F flame retardant conveyor belting ships with test certificates, and reinforced heavier duty belting is offered specifically for use with magnets.

Site services and compliance work

Throughout the year Mechani Mags keeps a trained site service team on standby, ready to travel worldwide. Its on-site menu takes in gauss, or magnetic strength, testing and reporting; routine inspection reporting; certificate of compliance inspection, testing and reporting; commissioning assistance and release inspections; fault finding; installation assistance; general repairs and part replacement where these can be carried out in place; and site assessment for a new magnet application. For an operation gearing up for an audit or wrapping up a shutdown scope, that mix of testing and documentation usually counts for as much as the hardware does.

Head office and workshop sit at 30 Bisset Road, corner Hargan, JetPark, Boksburg, 1460, in Gauteng, with the office open 07:30 to 16:30 Monday to Thursday and 07:30 to 14:30 on Friday. The company ships worldwide and publishes its company profile under the banner 50 Years Strong. Complete product detail, downloadable technical documents, support services and contact options are laid out on the Mechani Mags website at https://africanmagnets.com/.

About Mechani Mags

Mechani Mags is a South African manufacturer of conveyor magnets and magnetic separators built for tramp metal removal across the mining, processing and recycling sectors. Working from a head office and workshop in JetPark, Boksburg, Gauteng, the company designs and manufactures dry-type suspended self-cleaning overband belt magnets, ferrochrome magnets, lifting magnets, drum magnets, demagnetising coils and custom magnet solutions, and supplies the control panels, belting, chain sets and spares that back them up. It repairs and upgrades magnets of any make in a workshop rated for units up to 20 tons, carries out oil to dry conversions, and delivers on-site gauss testing, inspection and compliance reporting through a service team that travels both locally and internationally.