Automatic Cuber System Cost: What Separates Five Types

Automatic cuber system cost is set by the frame, the clamp and the number of stations, not by the paint on the panel. A cuber is a column or a gantry, a chuck that grips a whole layer, two or three powered axes and a discharge path. Two machines can stack the same block to 1,400 mm, and one carries 34.15 kW and 18,000 kg while the other does it on 15 kW. That gap is not brand. It is what each machine is asked to do with the layer.

The five families below are builds we sell, and each answers a different question: where the bricks are when they are ready to cube, how the stack leaves the machine, and who stands next to it. An offer that names a cuber but no pallet count and no cycle band has named a box.

Where the money sits across five structural families

Every cuber carries the same three loads: the layer, the pallet under it and the stack it builds. What changes is how many powered axes move, how the bricks leave the pallet, and whether the stack keeps forklift holes of its own.

• Low-position automatic, QS-1200A: 15 to 18 seconds per layer, about 3,800 pallets a shift, one operator, 1,000 to 1,200 mm square stacks, 34.15 kW.
• Self-retaining hole high-level, QS-1200B: builds the forklift holes inside the stack, so nothing downstream needs a pallet, and it retrofits onto a running line.
• Fixed clamp machine, QS-1000G-A: two independent hydraulic circuits so brick clamp and pallet clamp work together, 16 to 18 seconds per layer, 1,700 pallets a shift on 15 kW.
• Simple cuber, QS-1000G-B: separates brick from pallet directly with no dividing, about 16 seconds per layer, 2,000 pallets a shift on 29 kW. Its double-station version, QS-1000G-C, cubes both ways at 12 to 15 seconds per layer and 3,800 pallets a shift.
• Crawler mobile, QS-1000Y: remote controlled, 1,300 pallets a day, up to 20 layers of solid brick in one pass, 5,000 kg, 15 kW.

Fixed frame or crawler: the base you are paying for

A fixed machine bolts to a slab and takes its bricks from a pallet path. The QS-1200A needs 12,000 x 3,000 mm of floor and 34.15 kW for 3,800 pallets a shift; the QS-1000G-A delivers 1,700 on 15 kW from a 7,500 x 7,000 mm footprint. The second machine carries less steel because it grips fewer bricks per cycle.

A crawler carries its own undercarriage instead. The QS-1000Y weighs 5,000 kg, walks at about 2 km/h and folds to 5,000 x 1,900 x 2,500 mm for transport, then cubes up to 20 layers of solid brick where the bricks are curing. You buy mobility and a remote control, and you give up the pallet conveyor. Its chuck stroke is 1,000 mm against 1,500 mm on the fixed machines: enough at a curing row, short over a transfer line.

Labour follows the same split. The QS-1200A and the QS-1000G-A each run with one operator, the QS-1000G-B runs unmanned and shows its own faults on screen, and the crawler needs a man on the remote while it stacks. Ask for the crew number per shift.

What does a three second gain in the cycle do to a shift?

Rate is the only honest way to read a cycle band. At 16 seconds per layer a cuber completes 225 layers in an hour, at 13 seconds 277. Over an 8 hour shift that is 1,800 layers against 2,215, and layers are what a pallet is made of. Bands run 16 to 18 seconds per layer on the QS-1000G-A, 15 to 18 on the QS-1000G-B, 12 to 15 on the QS-1000G-C.

The band also says where the machine sits when the product changes. A cuber sold at 15 to 18 seconds runs near 18 with a tall hollow block and near 15 with a thin solid brick. Budget the slow end: a machine quoted at 2,000 pallets, running at 18 seconds all day, does not deliver 2,000.

Does a double-station cuber pay for itself?

The double-station build adds a second cuber system and a second brick-out system, so cubing runs on the left and the right at once. That is why the QS-1000G-C takes 44 to 45 kW and 12,000 kg against 29 kW and 9,000 kg for the QS-1000G-B, and why its floor width grows from 6,000 mm to 7,500 mm at the same 19,000 mm length.

It pays when the cuber is the bottleneck. A press filling 3,800 pallets a shift behind a cuber that takes 2,000 leaves 1,800 pallets waiting. It does not pay when your press cannot fill 2,000 pallets: the second station stands still for half the shift. Count your press output per shift before you price the second station.

Cutting the brick, or stacking the layer as it comes

The QS-1000G-B separates brick from pallet directly and does not divide it. That works when the product is nearly square once the bricks are combined, or when two pallets combine into one square. Otherwise the layer needs arrangement: a pallet pusher and a first brick pusher separate it, then a second and third pusher with a rotating table arrange it. Each one is a cylinder, a guide rail and a step in the control program.

Clamping figures need a second look. The QS-1000G-A quotes a minimum brick thickness of 50 mm; the QS-1000G-B quotes a minimum clamping height of 250 mm. One describes a brick, the other a stack, so they do not compare. A 50 mm paver reaches 250 mm at five layers, which is a normal cube.

The hole-leaving mechanism and the pallets you stop buying

The QS-1200B builds the forklift holes into the stack, so nothing downstream needs a pallet. What you pay for is a high-level frame and the pusher and rotating-table chain that rebuilds the layer with the void in place. What you stop paying for is the pallet loop: every pallet leaves with the stack, returns empty, gets repaired and is fed back in. It also retrofits onto a running line, so added capacity does not replace what you have.

What to ask before you compare two cuber offers

Two offers for the same block can differ widely in steel and power. These five items make that visible before any figure is discussed.

• Layer drawing with pieces per layer. The QS-1200A carries 125 standard solid bricks or 18 standard hollow blocks in one layer, and the drawing shows whether your product fits.
• Cycle band in seconds per layer, with the basis named, because a per layer figure and a per station figure cannot be compared.
• Pallets per shift with the shift length written down, so a per day figure and a per shift figure are not added together by mistake.
• Clamping figures on a named basis: 500 kg clamping weight, 250 mm minimum clamping height or 50 mm minimum brick thickness, and stack height, 1,300 mm on the QS-1000G-A and 1,400 mm on the simple machines.
• Power, weight and footprint side by side: 15 kW and 6,200 kg on the fixed machine against 44 to 45 kW and 12,000 kg on the double-station build shows which frame you buy.