One type of gold mining device that uses a power generator is the wash plant and concentrator. This is a machine that acts much like a sluice in that it washes the soil and sediment found in riverbeds to separate lighter sediment from heavier particles. These particles can include stones, rocks, and gold particles. When the water leaves the wash plant, these lighter sediments wash away and only the heavier particles will remain.From there, these heavier objects are put into the concentrator. The concentrator acts to separate unimportant particles such as stones from the important particles, the gold particles and gold nuggets. These concentrators are powered by a simple five horsepower generator and allows for a much larger amount of material to be mined in a reduced amount of time. The cost of a power generator is easily covered within a relatively short amount of time, because of the fact that much more material can be mined with a generator, as opposed to manually washing the material and then placing the remaining material into a concentrator. The power generator is a necessity in this type of situation.
For the smaller, more amateur gold miner, there is a similar device that can be used in conjunction with a smaller power generator. There are many different types of electrically powered spiral wheel concentrators that can be used by simply supplying a 12-volt current. In this type of concentrator, the water pump circulates water continuously through fine sand in order to get all remaining gold from the sediment. This concentrates the amount of gold recovered from the fine sand and assures the miner that all possible gold particles have been removed from the sediment, to maximize the miner's profit. The concentrators are also very efficient for mining areas that do not have a lot of water, because the water they use is completely self-contained; these units are even powered by a smaller power generator, which naturally reduces the cost of operation. Only about three gallons of water are needed in these more compact concentrators, and the electric pump continually circulates the available water through the system. The power generator can also take the place of a natural stream for the gold miner. Instead of building a sluice off of a flowing river, a miner can purchase a product that runs on power from a generator that pumps water over a large amount of material to separate the light sediment from the heavy gold particles. This is a very efficient form of removing the gold from the silt in the streambed, because the gold particles are left behind in the sluice, while the water that is being pumped by the electric water pump washes the rest of the sand and soil away. From this step, the remaining material can be placed into a spiral concentrator or other device to further the efficiency of picking the gold out of the silt from the streambed. The power sluice can easily be connected to a small power generator to help the miner discover gold in streams and riverbeds, even in the most remote locations around the world.
Power generators are a reliable and necessary product to have for today's gold miner. They provide electricity to many of the machines that make gold mining more efficient and help to produce a higher profit for the miner, by making mining processes more efficient and faster. Spiral concentrators can easily be connected to a power generator in the field to efficiently remove small particles of gold from sand. Power sluices can take the place of streams to wash away sediment from the heavier gold pieces in place of pan handling. The use of power generators allows gold miners to mine a larger area in a shorter period of time, in a much more efficient manner.