Lucidyne Technologies Inc.- Sierra Pacific Buys GradeScan® for Sonora and Quincy
Sierra Pacific Industries has purchased two more Lucidyne GradeScan® systems; one to retrofit into its Quincy, California mill and one wide 24″ scanner for its new mill at Sonora, California. Sierra processes several species and grades, including Dimension, Common, and Decking, with sizes ranging from 1×4 to 4×12 and 6×6 timbers. The Sonora scanner will spend much of its time grading Shop Lumber. The purchase also includes two new RipScans® for Sierra Pacific mills at Richfield and Red Bluff.
GradeScan represents a quantum leap beyond simple geometric profile scanning. GradeScan features fully-integrated color, trachied, geometric, and density sensors and is capable of operating at lineal speeds above 3000 feet/minute. SPI mills have found that the system provides consistent grade optimization and improved trim decisions. Besides the obvious advantage of adding the biological aspect to lumber grading, GradeScan also deals with eased edges, gang saw mis-match, smooth bark, tear-outs, mechanical gouges, and light planer skip much more accurately than a geometric scanner alone.
The scanner installs directly behind a planer, with a footprint as small as 24 lineal inches! Warp information is collected downstream from the scanner where boards are relaxed. GradeScan determines trim and grade according to physical and appearance grade rules (including knot displacement). Other than a few defects such as Timber Break and some uncommon decays, GradeScan takes over ALL the tasks typically performed by a human grader. The final production operation leaves one check grader in place to watch for material handling problems and provide limiting grade and/or trim marks for the occasional defects not covered by the scanner. The Lucidyne Grade Mark Reader provides an opportunity to incorporate a manual input into the optimizing solution as well as capturing special symbols to assist with quality control sampling.
GradeScan® Installations
Sierra Pacific Industries
| Aberdeen WA | Anderson, CA |
| Burlington, WA | Burney, CA |
| Lincoln, CA | Quincy, CA July, 2011 |
| Sonora, CA Fall, 2011 |