Lico ADM & ADMS Optimized Board Edger Systems

Servo positioning at production speed

An ADM line scans each flitch, computes the edging solution, and positions the piece with servo-controlled belts and patented positioning modules while it is still moving. Rolls pre-position by servo cylinder before the piece arrives, and pneumatic air-bag springs hold pressure on the product as thickness changes, which is what keeps vibration out of the pivots. Lico holds two patents on the approach, CA 2,926,562 and US 9,415,950 B1.

The number that explains the machine

Lico's own description of what those patents buy is easy to skim past: the line processes up to 60 boards per minute while keeping the lowest possible feed speed at the board edger. That is worth slowing down on, because it separates two numbers that get treated as one. Feed speed is how fast wood travels through the saw, and every mill knows what happens to a cut when you push that. Piece rate is how often the next board shows up. You raise the second by shrinking the space between pieces rather than by running the wood harder, and Lico's figure for that space is a gap as low as 0.6 seconds, held by keeping every piece in continuous motion instead of starting and stopping it.

Two honest qualifiers on the 60. It is calculated on 8 foot flitches, and a longer flitch means fewer pieces through the machine in the same minute, so quote the rate and the length together or neither tells you much. And the medium-speed configuration at around 30 pieces per minute is the one Lico describes as well suited to many hardwood sawmills, which is to say the headline number is not the one most hardwood mills end up buying.

Why the decision is made one flitch at a time

Taking flitches singly is what lets the machine decide separately for each one, and in hardwood that decision is worth more than the width it recovers. NHLA grades are yield thresholds: FAS asks a board to yield 83-1/3 percent clear cuttings, No. 1 Common 66-2/3 percent, and No. 2A Common 50 percent up to the point where No. 1 Common starts. A board sitting just under a threshold is worth materially less than the same board just over it, and edging moves both the surface measure and the clear-cutting yield at once. That is the calculation the optimizer is running while the piece is in motion.

Rated speed and shift-end numbers are different things

Ahead of the saw, the reverse-angle camel-back unscrambler and lugless staging transfers turn a rough deck into a steady, singulated flow with the ends already lined up. This is the part of the quote that gets trimmed first and then explains the gap between the rated speed and what the line does at the end of a shift: a saw can only edge the boards that arrive properly presented, on time, one at a time.

The machine itself is built on a monocoque frame that integrates the infeed and the saw box, with chromed feed rolls, spherical roller bearings and centralized lubrication. Hydraulics and pneumatics are mounted together, diagnostics are on board, and Lico specifies standard electronic components available on the open market, which is the kind of decision you appreciate at 2 a.m. on a production night.