HVAC Manufacturing

Facility: HVAC Component Manufacturing in, GA
Affected Operations: Extremely close tolerance milling operation of high grade cast iron

Historical Problems:

This customer was operating dedicated filter systems supplied by  the machine tool manufacturer.  As systems were marginally sized and not designed for cast iron machining, the customer was experiencing great difficulty in obtaining satisfactory filtration performance with any degree of reliability. Assistance through the OEM was limited and difficult to obtain.  The original final filter on one machine required cleaning once per shift.  Target points to be met by new filtration included:

• Clarity guarantee of 15 micron nominal at less than 100 ppm
• Decreased down time as relating to filtration related issues
• Consistent and reliable filtration performance
• Reduced maintenance demands and expenditures

 

Corrective Action:

Flow Pro Products designed a central system and provided supervising assistance during installation and start up.  The system design retained the existing chip conveyors on each machine.  Transfer pumps were selected and installed onto machine reservoirs to minimize and/or eliminate maintenance at each machine sump.

Flow Pro worked with customer engineering staff to integrate the Central system operation, without altering any of the existing machine operation and process. The concept is a single stage magnetic filtration system. The process tank is a dual section drag out tank, where the coolant after the Magnetic Filters is allowed to suspend any tramp oils for capture and removal.  The coolant overflows into clean side by a stationary weir and is side-streamed, by an automatic Pressure Filter/Perlite Filter aid to control fine particulate build up.

The collected fines are automatically discharged into a hopper in dry condition.  The resultant clean coolant has gradually restored view thru the previously blackened glass in the machine tools sliding door.  Now the operators are delighted to be able to observe the machining process, without having to bypass the safety switch, which interrupts the machine when door is open.