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Industrial parts cleaning is essential for keeping your machinery and equipment in the best possible condition. Using the latest cleaning techniques, you can eliminate excess spending and reduce your downtime, helping your business to run smoothly. When it comes to industrial parts cleaning there are various options to choose from. You can purchase your own industrial cleaning tools, hire the equipment you need to do the job yourself, or outsource the task to a specialist. In this article, we are weighing up the pros and cons of each option, to help you decide if buying, hiring, or outsourcing is the best option for your industrial parts cleaning.

Buying Industrial Cleaning Equipment

Many organisations choose to invest in their own equipment for industrial parts cleaning and keep the entire service in house.

Pros:

You own the equipment
You have total control over use of the equipment
Always available and always on site for industrial parts cleaning whenever you need it
You set and maintain the standards yourself

Cons:

Capital cost
Maintenance of parts often requires specialist labour
Need to buy consumables
Waste disposal must be handled in house
Additional operation with a different approach to processing/manufacturing

Costs:

What is the upfront cost? Typically a basic ultrasonic machine will cost from £5k to £25k, and a basic rotary jet wash from £10k to £20k. What are the ongoing costs of operating these? Running costs for power and chemicals will go from £100 to £1000 per month dependent upon size and usage. Ultimately the cost of buying industrial part cleaning equipment will depend on:

The size of the machine required
Its complexity, because the more the machine is modified to the specific requirements of cleaning the parts, e.g. spray wash, filtration, oil separation, the more it will cost
Multi process cleaning operations, e.g. wash, rinse, dry
Automated handling to load, move and unload the parts during cleaning without manual handling
Variable operations to accommodate different parts, or different cleaning criteria

FAQs For Buying Industrial Cleaning Equipment:

Who are the most well-known manufacturers/suppliers? There are more manufacturers of machinery than companies offering industrial cleaning services. Ultrasonic machine manufacturers include:

Allendale
Alphasonics
Camsonic
Caresonic
EJ Electronic
Hilsonic
Mecwash
Technowash
Turbex
Ultrawave

The most suitable manufacturer for you will depend upon your specific requirements and budget. Many manufacturers have particular expertise in an industry so would be better for businesses operating in their area of expertise. Jet wash machine manufacturers include:

Bio-Circle
Rotajet
Safetykleen
Turbex
Vixen

Similarly to ultrasonic equipment manufacturers which one is best will depend on your specific requirements as again many manufacturers have a specialist expertise in specific industries. Should you get a solvent or aqueous based one? The trend is more to the use of aqueous cleaners rather than solvents since these are environmentally and safety wise seen as far better than their solvent equivalents. There are also many legal restrictions on the uses of certain solvents. However, the vast majority of aqueous solutions contain some solvents, and there are a wide variety of closed system solvent cleaners that both recondense the solvent cleaner and have very low solvent emissions. Open tank solvent cleaning systems are largely consigned to history. However, as a consequence of their more complex nature, solvent cleaning machines do tend to be significantly more expensive than aqueous based cleaners. What kind of customer is this a good fit for? Buying equipment is usually the first option considered and is often the best option where all or many of the following factors are in play;

Cleaning is ongoing and an intermediary process between other operations.
Required turnaround times on cleaning are immediate and ongoing.
Production is continuous rather than batch production.
Parts being cleaned are relatively homogenous and straightforward to clean.
The cleaning process is a single operation rather than multiple processes using different technologies.
Cleaning will be a continuing requirement, and not a temporary one.
The logistics of moving parts off site for cleaning are complex, costly or compromise security.

Hiring Industrial Cleaning Equipment

If buying isn’t the right choice, you might consider hiring equipment for industrial parts cleaning.

Pros:

No upfront capital cost
The hire company should assist in the selection of the right equipment for the job
The hire company will usually supply a replacement machine in the event the hired one stops working
The hire company usually provide support in terms of training staff in the machine’s operation, and the chemistry and waste disposal
Costs are fixed and known for the length of the contract
The cleaning operation is still fully under the control of the Company itself

Cons:

Lengthy contracts with expensive termination clauses
The Company will need to provide their own personnel and factory space to operate and house the equipment to do the cleaning
Services and disposal considerations are still ultimately the responsibility of the Company
Maintaining the required cleanliness standards are still the Company’s responsibility.
Variations in quantities, part type, etc.. can mean the original machinery and cleaning process is no longer appropriate or adequate. The hire company may not always be accommodating or responsive to these changes

Costs:

Costs of equipment hire vary tremendously and can take different forms depending upon the hire arrangement of just the machinery, or the more usual machinery, chemical, maintenance and waste disposal. However, costs typically range from £500 to £1,000 per month. What are the ongoing costs of operating these? Again, extremely variable depending on the arrangement. Most contracts do ensure costs remain fairly constant throughout the period, but changes in equipment and frequency of the periodic maintenance/chemical changes will alter the rates. What can drive the cost up from the “starting from” price? The biggest single factor is increasing the frequency of maintenance visits. In fact visits from the hiring Company are probably the biggest single influence on the hire cost after the size of the machine under hire.

FAQs For Hiring Industrial Parts Cleaning Equipment

Where can I hire industrial parts cleaning equipment from? Safetykleen are the biggest single hirer of cleaning equipment, but other companies like bio-circle and rotajet are also active in this market as well as straight selling of the equipment. What should I consider when hiring? As with any hire contract the devil is in the detail. Particular attention should be paid to:

Frequency of machine maintenance, including replenishment of chemical and disposal of waste, and the costs of increasing and decreasing this frequency.
What happens should the machine break down in terms of response rates and replacement.
The required notice period and penalties for termination of the contract.

Outsourcing Industrial Cleaning Equipment

Another common option for industrial parts cleaning is outsourcing the job to a specialist firm.

Pros:

Outsourced companies like Sonic Solutions offer a range of solutions not just one
No financial outlay on machinery
More cleaning solutions available
No upfront capital cost
No setting up of an in-house cleaning operation requiring trained staff
No services requirements for water/electric/ventilation/waste disposal/chemical storage & handling etc..
No ongoing maintenance costs of equipment
No ongoing consumables costs for power and chemicals
No lengthy learning curve for getting the right level of cleanliness
Focus remains on own area of expertise, making the product, not cleaning the product

Cons:

Logistics of packing and transporting the items to be cleaned, both direct costs and time delay
Potential exposure to failures of the third party doing the cleaning
Increased risk of damage or loss to items being cleaned while off site
Security risk of sensitive items whilst off site
Lack of knowledge of item being cleaned by those cleaning it compared to those who make or use it

Costs:

What is the cost to outsource industrial parts cleaning? Cleaning costs vary enormously depending upon the complexity of the clean (particularly multi-process), size/weight and quantities being cleaned, the speed of turnaround required and the frequency of cleaning. Typically, small simple cleans cost from £50 to £100, whilst more complex cleans will be £1000 upwards. Frequency and volume reduce unit charges but increases total cost. What can drive the cost up from the “starting from” price? Higher levels of contamination, complexity of the item being cleaned, one-off cleans, multi stage (pre-treat, wash, rinse, dry, packaging etc..) and multi cleaning processes (pyrolysis, jet wash, media blast, ultrasonic etc..) can all increase from the base price

FAQs For Outsourcing Industrial Parts Cleaning

Why choose outsourcing over buying or hiring? The most frequent reason for cleaning being outsourced is that in-house cleaning is unpopular with staff and consequently done very badly. This can frequently result in higher costs attributable to poor quality than the extra cost of subcontracting out the cleaning to an expert who does it properly, first time. Why does the cost of outsourcing seem high? The costs of industrial parts cleaning is frequently underestimated by people who do not understand the full process of cleaning and view it as “only cleaning”. Where multi process cleaning is required to get the desired level of cleanliness, in-house operations frequently miss steps out with the consequence being that cleanliness specifications are not met.

Is Buying, Hiring, Or Outsourcing The Right Option For My Business?

There is no one size fits all approach to industrial parts cleaning. Every business is different and unique requirements mean that each option needs to be carefully considered. Here we have broken down the three options and the scenarios when they might be most suitable: Buying equipment for industrial parts cleaning might be the most suitable option if:

The requirement is long term and relatively stable
The cleaning process is well known
The cleaning process is relatively straightforward
Items to be cleaned are fairly homogeneous
The equipment required is affordable to the business (either low cost, or a financially affluent business)
Cleaning is an intermediate and integral part of a process, which is difficult or impossible to interrupt. Cleaning must therefore be in-house with own machines under the complete control of the business
Intellectual property dictates complete confidentiality of all parts of the production process

Hiring equipment might work for you company if:

The equipment required is not affordable to the business
Items to be cleaned are varied so a wide range of equipment is required.
The cleaning requirement is well known, BUT the volumes and duration of requirement are potentially variable so equipment requirements may have to be revised

Outsourcing industrial parts cleaning could be the perfect solution if:

Your company has little or no cleaning experience or expertise
The cleaning methods and requirements are not well known by your team
In-house cleaning has proven ineffective and costly
There is no scope for setting up an in-house cleaning operation (space, services, environmental issues etc..)
The cleaning requirement is of a specialist nature (often multi staged and multi processed)
The cleaning requirement is for a limited period of time (not warranting the expense of setting up cleaning operations)
The cleaning requirement is critical, vital and immediate and there is insufficient time or resources to set up an in-house cleaning operation (the cleaning contract is a prelude to setting up an in-house cleaning operation)
Cleaning is incompatible with existing operations, be it the noise, chemicals, waste disposal, or other environmental considerations
Cleaning requirements are very variable and in-house cleaning capacity may be overloaded so subcontract cleaning handles the occasional excess load.

At Sonic Solutions, we are experts in industrial parts cleaning and we are here to help! We are more than happy to explore, advise and assist with whichever option works best for you and can offer hire or finance options. Contact our expert team today to discuss your requirements in more detail.

Sonic Solutions’ Pyrolysis Burn-Off Oven: 1 Year On

Our Pyrolysis Burn-Off oven has now been in action for 12 months and it has been a huge success. We go above and beyond what the competition offers for a holistic, multi-stage cleaning process using the oven and some supporting processes. The results have been fantastic and we have many satisfied customers from the past year.

Over this time, we have cleaned everything from filters and spinnerets to jigs, extruder screws and over parts – we have even cleaned baking trays with superb results. The industrial parts cleaning process removes baked-on paints and plastics, as well as stubborn food residue that cannot be removed any other way. Some of the jobs completed have left items looking as good as the day they were bought.

The importance of clean industrial parts

When your industrial parts are kept clean to the highest possible standards, your business saves time and money, not to mention a lot of hassle. Our holistic approach with varied cleaning techniques will vastly reduce your spend on consumables and allow you to focus on productivity. Whether your contaminants are paints, plastics, food or anything else, we have a solution with our pyrolysis burn-off oven and complementary processes that will work for you.

We do it all in-house with our cutting-edge equipment and guarantee fast results that will impress right down to the finest detail. We also bring a wealth of expertise and experience to the table to ensure even the most challenging contaminants will never cause delays.

What makes the Sonic Solutions pyrolysis burn-off special?

Most companies offering this service focus on a quick burn in the oven followed by a basic clean with a jet wash. Our process involves a much slower burn in the oven, aimed at protecting the underlying metal via slower heating and cooling. We have a wealth of understanding about the temperatures required to tackle different contaminants on the items, so we will tailor the process to your needs.

After the heating process in the oven is complete, we undertake various complimentary cleaning processes such as:

Ultrasonic cleaning, perfect for removing contaminants like oil and carbon on your items.
Vapour blasting, where compressed air is mixed with an abrasive media in a water solution, removing more contaminants whilst leaving a smoother finish after completion.
Jet washing, using a state-of-the-art top-loaded Vixen jet wash to clean different sizes and shapes of parts.

We find that through balanced combinations of those complimentary cleaning methods, we can get the best possible results whilst cutting down on the time taken and the chemicals used.

A year of high-quality pyrolysis burn-off

The introduction of this burn-off oven has been a huge success for Sonic Solutions. We have developed our own processes to maximise efficiency and can offer significant cost savings against many other methods of cleaning. Plus the lack of hazardous chemicals or waste disposal makes it a very eco-friendly solution.

We are passionate about delivering nothing but the highest standards with our thermal stripping service. When you outsource this process to us, you are guaranteed fast, high-quality results and you will free up your own skilled workers to focus on the core tasks for your business.

Inferior cleaning can harm the performance of your equipment. It can also lead to problems that cause downtime and loss of your income. The last 12 months have shown that our processes are highly effective for a wide range of equipment and materials – the results speak for themselves and we have glowing testimonials from countless satisfied customers.

Contact our expert team at Sonic Solutions today and book a free trial clean to get a taste of what we can do for you.

Pyrolysis Parts Cleaning For The Paint Industry

Keeping industrial parts cleaned to the highest standards means your business can save time, hassle, and money. With the right cleaning techniques, you can eliminate excess spend on consumables, reduce downtime and improve both productivity and quality. At Sonic Solutions, we are specialists in cleaning key parts and machinery in the paint industry and we’ve put together this expert guide to handling paint contamination and the solutions available.

The Paint Contamination Problem

Manufacturing paint and polymer coatings involves many different parts, including pipework, nozzles, valves, mixing vessels, filters, conveyor belts, receptacles, and jigs. All of these parts will get dirty with time, as paint residue collects and accumulates on their surfaces. This accumulation of paint and polymer residue causes numerous problems and issues in production, quality, and finance. Some of the most common issues we see caused by this build up are:

The passage of the product or part can quickly become restricted, slowing throughput unless flow rates are increased.
To compensate for restricted flow, pressures and flow rates must be increased. In turn, this raises further issues of safety as pressures rise to potentially dangerous levels, and process control reduces as the flow rate increases.
As control reduces it means that quality begins to suffer, and solid particulate risks are introduced into the end product.
Any build up of organic material in the process risks the development of bacteria, which is both a health and a quality issue.
If the accumulation of residual product is not properly addressed and resolved, then it will lead to a complete shutdown of equipment.

It is inevitable that cleaning or replacement of these dirty parts will need to take place at some stage. However, not only can these parts be extremely expensive, but they are also often bespoke, manufactured abroad and on extremely long lead times, making their replacement a financial, logistical and production nightmare.

Ultimately parts need to be cleaned, can you do this in-house?

The short answer is yes and the majority of businesses will look to clean parts themselves as the first option, especially if the cost of replacement is high or the lead time on replacement is long. It might seem like the perfect solution, but in house parts cleaning operations are often not as simple and painless as people think. The problems and pains of in-house cleaning are plentiful, including;

Cleaning these parts is often a multi-stage process, employing a range of cleaning methodologies, equipment, and chemistry. To take on such cleaning in-house would require significant investment in both equipment and experienced personnel, together with making the space and services available to accommodate the additional process.
Each different part has different cleaning requirements, and these variable needs make the process even more challenging for an in-house team. Some parts require simple cleaning, while others need a more complex procedure to keep them running well.
Setting up and running a cleaning facility is usually outside the experience of most production personnel, with the result being that the cleaning results they deliver are disappointing.

Outsourced Parts Cleaning For The Paint Industry

A sub-contracted cleaning operation, particularly when part of a planned maintenance programme, can be extremely effective in both time and money compared to the alternatives of replacement parts or in-house cleaning. Paint can be removed by a number of methods, including pyrolysis (also known as burn-off), chemical stripping (usually either solvent based or highly caustic), or media blasting (using sand, glass, a metallic oxide or soda crystals, either in dry form or within a water jet).

Pyrolysis: This method essentially burns off the paint from the parts. It Involves gradual heating of the part in an oxygen deprived environment to reduce the paint or polymer to an inert ash, the volatile hydrocarbon elements evaporating and reducing to carbon dioxide and water.

Harder metals like steel and copper will not be adversely affected by this and there is complete removal of the contaminant with only inert residual ash being left. This can then be removed using jet washing and/or ultrasonic cleaning.

Metals may be discoloured by exposure to high temperatures, although their physical and chemical properties are unlikely to be adversely affected by this. Of course, if there are a variety of metals within a part, or some non-metallic attachment like seals, linings and electrical components these may be damaged by the process.

Chemical Stripping: Most paints can be removed by either solvents or caustic based solutions. Through a combination of dissolving and lifting the paint from the metallic surface they can remove paints and polymers satisfactorily.

However, most modern paints are designed to be relatively resistant to water and common day chemical substances so increasingly strong and aggressive chemistry is needed to remove them. This has clear implications for their handling and usage, with special precautions and procedures required to comply with health and safety regulations. This often creates issues within the process plant itself where the necessary chemical cleaning regime conflicts with the core production process.

Media Blasting: Blasting small particles at high velocity and pressure is a popular way of removing paints from a hard surface. The media used can vary from silica, sand, metallic oxides, glass beads, baking powder, or dry ice/frozen carbon dioxide pellets. The media will be chosen to be aggressive enough to remove the paint coating but without damaging the underlying material. It may be applied “dry” propelled by compressed air, or “wet” carried within a waterjet.

This is a hard call, especially as paints become more durable, requiring ever greater force to remove. The other big issue with media blasting is actually reaching all the surfaces that require cleaning. Complex geometry and internal openings and channels often mean the contaminating paint cannot be fully removed.

At Sonic Solutions, we offer all the above cleaning solutions. For the removal of paint, our specialists’ preferred method would usually be pyrolysis, unless there is a specific reason not to. Done correctly it removes all contaminating paint without damaging the item itself, leaving the bare metal for any future process.

It should be added that the majority of the time, the burning is only the first stage of the complete cleaning process, usually followed by a combination of jet washing, ultrasonic cleaning or even a further media blast, to leave a completely clean metal surface. At Sonic Solutions, we are able to offer a unique cleaning process compared to both in-house cleaning and other subcontract cleaning operations as we use a variety of cleaning processes to achieve the desired level of cleanliness.

Our cleaning expertise and experience combined with our flexibility and desire to deliver what the customer wants, when they want it, explains why some of the biggest and most demanding paint manufacturers like PPG, Dow, and Dupont rely on us to get rid of their unwanted paint residue from working parts.

To see how the process works, watch us in action.

Industrial Parts Cleaning… Buying vs Hiring vs Outsourcing, Which Is Best?

Industrial parts cleaning is essential for keeping your machinery and equipment in the best possible condition. Using the latest cleaning techniques, you can eliminate excess spending and reduce your downtime, helping your business to run smoothly. When it comes to industrial parts cleaning there are various options to choose from. You can purchase your own industrial cleaning tools, hire the equipment you need to do the job yourself, or outsource the task to a specialist. In this article, we are weighing up the pros and cons of each option, to help you decide if buying, hiring, or outsourcing is the best option for your industrial parts cleaning.

Buying Industrial Cleaning Equipment

Many organisations choose to invest in their own equipment for industrial parts cleaning and keep the entire service in house.

Pros:

You own the equipment
You have total control over use of the equipment
Always available and always on site for industrial parts cleaning whenever you need it
You set and maintain the standards yourself

Cons:

Capital cost
Maintenance of parts often requires specialist labour
Need to buy consumables
Waste disposal must be handled in house
Additional operation with a different approach to processing/manufacturing

Costs:

What is the upfront cost?
Typically a basic ultrasonic machine will cost from £5k to £25k, and a basic rotary jet wash from £10k to £20k.

What are the ongoing costs of operating these?
Running costs for power and chemicals will go from £100 to £1000 per month dependent upon size and usage.

Ultimately the cost of buying industrial part cleaning equipment will depend on:

The size of the machine required
Its complexity, because the more the machine is modified to the specific requirements of cleaning the parts, e.g. spray wash, filtration, oil separation, the more it will cost
Multi process cleaning operations, e.g. wash, rinse, dry
Automated handling to load, move and unload the parts during cleaning without manual handling
Variable operations to accommodate different parts, or different cleaning criteria

FAQs For Buying Industrial Cleaning Equipment:

Who are the most well-known manufacturers/suppliers?
There are more manufacturers of machinery than companies offering industrial cleaning services. Ultrasonic machine manufacturers include:

Allendale
Alphasonics
Camsonic
Caresonic
EJ Electronic
Hilsonic
Mecwash
Technowash
Turbex
Ultrawave

Jet wash machine manufacturers include:

Bio-Circle
Rotajet
Safetykleen
Turbex
Vixen

Similarly to ultrasonic equipment manufacturers which one is best will depend on your specific requirements as again many manufacturers have a specialist expertise in specific industries.

Should you get a solvent or aqueous based one?
The trend is more to the use of aqueous cleaners rather than solvents since these are environmentally and safety wise seen as far better than their solvent equivalents. There are also many legal restrictions on the uses of certain solvents.

However, the vast majority of aqueous solutions contain some solvents, and there are a wide variety of closed system solvent cleaners that both recondense the solvent cleaner and have very low solvent emissions.

Open tank solvent cleaning systems are largely consigned to history. However, as a consequence of their more complex nature, solvent cleaning machines do tend to be significantly more expensive than aqueous based cleaners.

What kind of customer is this a good fit for?
Buying equipment is usually the first option considered and is often the best option where all or many of the following factors are in play;

Cleaning is ongoing and an intermediary process between other operations.
Required turnaround times on cleaning are immediate and ongoing.
Production is continuous rather than batch production.
Parts being cleaned are relatively homogenous and straightforward to clean.
The cleaning process is a single operation rather than multiple processes using different technologies.
Cleaning will be a continuing requirement, and not a temporary one.
The logistics of moving parts off site for cleaning are complex, costly or compromise security.

Hiring Industrial Cleaning Equipment

If buying isn’t the right choice, you might consider hiring equipment for industrial parts cleaning.

Pros:

No upfront capital cost
The hire company should assist in the selection of the right equipment for the job
The hire company will usually supply a replacement machine in the event the hired one stops working
The hire company usually provide support in terms of training staff in the machine’s operation, and the chemistry and waste disposal
Costs are fixed and known for the length of the contract
The cleaning operation is still fully under the control of the Company itself

Cons:

Lengthy contracts with expensive termination clauses
The Company will need to provide their own personnel and factory space to operate and house the equipment to do the cleaning
Services and disposal considerations are still ultimately the responsibility of the Company
Maintaining the required cleanliness standards are still the Company’s responsibility.
Variations in quantities, part type, etc.. can mean the original machinery and cleaning process is no longer appropriate or adequate. The hire company may not always be accommodating or responsive to these changes

Costs:

What are the ongoing costs of operating these?
Again, extremely variable depending on the arrangement. Most contracts do ensure costs remain fairly constant throughout the period, but changes in equipment and frequency of the periodic maintenance/chemical changes will alter the rates.

What can drive the cost up from the “starting from” price?
The biggest single factor is increasing the frequency of maintenance visits. In fact visits from the hiring Company are probably the biggest single influence on the hire cost after the size of the machine under hire.

FAQs For Hiring Industrial Parts Cleaning Equipment

What should I consider when hiring?
As with any hire contract the devil is in the detail. Particular attention should be paid to:

Frequency of machine maintenance, including replenishment of chemical and disposal of waste, and the costs of increasing and decreasing this frequency.
What happens should the machine break down in terms of response rates and replacement.
The required notice period and penalties for termination of the contract.

Outsourcing Industrial Cleaning Equipment

Another common option for industrial parts cleaning is outsourcing the job to a specialist firm.

Pros:

Outsourced companies like Sonic Solutions offer a range of solutions not just one
No financial outlay on machinery
More cleaning solutions available
No upfront capital cost
No setting up of an in-house cleaning operation requiring trained staff
No services requirements for water/electric/ventilation/waste disposal/chemical storage & handling etc..
No ongoing maintenance costs of equipment
No ongoing consumables costs for power and chemicals
No lengthy learning curve for getting the right level of cleanliness
Focus remains on own area of expertise, making the product, not cleaning the product

Cons:

Logistics of packing and transporting the items to be cleaned, both direct costs and time delay
Potential exposure to failures of the third party doing the cleaning
Increased risk of damage or loss to items being cleaned while off site
Security risk of sensitive items whilst off site
Lack of knowledge of item being cleaned by those cleaning it compared to those who make or use it

Costs:

Typically, small simple cleans cost from £50 to £100, whilst more complex cleans will be £1000 upwards. Frequency and volume reduce unit charges but increases total cost.

What can drive the cost up from the “starting from” price?
Higher levels of contamination, complexity of the item being cleaned, one-off cleans, multi stage (pre-treat, wash, rinse, dry, packaging etc..) and multi cleaning processes (pyrolysis, jet wash, media blast, ultrasonic etc..) can all increase from the base price

FAQs For Outsourcing Industrial Parts Cleaning

Why does the cost of outsourcing seem high?
The costs of industrial parts cleaning is frequently underestimated by people who do not understand the full process of cleaning and view it as “only cleaning”. Where multi process cleaning is required to get the desired level of cleanliness, in-house operations frequently miss steps out with the consequence being that cleanliness specifications are not met.

Is Buying, Hiring, Or Outsourcing The Right Option For My Business?

Buying equipment for industrial parts cleaning might be the most suitable option if:

The requirement is long term and relatively stable
The cleaning process is well known
The cleaning process is relatively straightforward
Items to be cleaned are fairly homogeneous
The equipment required is affordable to the business (either low cost, or a financially affluent business)
Cleaning is an intermediate and integral part of a process, which is difficult or impossible to interrupt. Cleaning must therefore be in-house with own machines under the complete control of the business
Intellectual property dictates complete confidentiality of all parts of the production process

Hiring equipment might work for you company if:

The equipment required is not affordable to the business
Items to be cleaned are varied so a wide range of equipment is required.
The cleaning requirement is well known, BUT the volumes and duration of requirement are potentially variable so equipment requirements may have to be revised

Outsourcing industrial parts cleaning could be the perfect solution if:

Your company has little or no cleaning experience or expertise
The cleaning methods and requirements are not well known by your team
In-house cleaning has proven ineffective and costly
There is no scope for setting up an in-house cleaning operation (space, services, environmental issues etc..)
The cleaning requirement is of a specialist nature (often multi staged and multi processed)
The cleaning requirement is for a limited period of time (not warranting the expense of setting up cleaning operations)
The cleaning requirement is critical, vital and immediate and there is insufficient time or resources to set up an in-house cleaning operation (the cleaning contract is a prelude to setting up an in-house cleaning operation)
Cleaning is incompatible with existing operations, be it the noise, chemicals, waste disposal, or other environmental considerations
Cleaning requirements are very variable and in-house cleaning capacity may be overloaded so subcontract cleaning handles the occasional excess load.

Erema Maintenance – 5 Tips to Keep Your Hot Melt Filter Disks in Better Shape & Lasting Longer

Erema are probably the most popular brand in the UK of machinery to make pellets from recycled plastics. Their system of continuous hot melt filtration allows for high productivity of an extremely pure product.

The laser cut discs through which recycled product is melted and passed through prior to pelletisation are key to the entire process. If they get blocked (or blinded) then pressure builds up and throughput drops. Worse, if the pressure causes the disc to burst then impurities enter the finished product. Proper maintenance of these discs is therefore critical. In addition to production issues from blinded or burst discs the cost of replacements is eye watering, so proper maintenance of Erema filter discs is a problem facing all managers of Erema extrusion lines. Yet the traditional cleaning method of burn-off of residual plastic only partially clears the filter. Here at Sonic Solutions we specialise in the cleaning of Erema laser filter screens. We have worked with some of the UK’s leading plastics recyclers over the last 3 years and developed a cleaning process that has seen replacement costs cut in half, throughput increased by over 10% and downtime significantly reduced for nearly all our customers. We are the first to acknowledge the contribution of our customers in the development of this process. We have also learnt the following top tips from our Erema using customers in the maintenance of these discs to reduce wear and tear and keep them running better and longer. We thought it might be helpful to managers of Erema hot melt extrusion lines to share these tips on how to maintain and clean their filter discs.

1: Scheduled Downtime

If you wait for your machine pressures to skyrocket between laser filter screen changes then you risk the screen bursting requiring costly replacement as well as impurities entering your finished product. Changing the screens at frequent and specific predetermined times brings many benefits, including a longer life for your screen and a reduction in unplanned downtime, one of the costliest, most stressful and embarrassing occurrences in any production line. The cost of more frequent cleaning is a fraction of the cost of unplanned and frequent downtime and resultant replacement costs.

2: Blade Change

Metal particulate can get trapped in the screen and dragged around and around the filter by a blade too blunt to cut through it, causing the deep scoring damage. Yet blades are inexpensive compared to the replacement cost of a screen. A regular customer of ours changes their blades every week in a scheduled downtime (they also change and clean their screens at this point). They report that some screens have lasted 8-9 cycles of burn off/ultrasonics as a consequence of this weekly changing of blades alone.

3: Screen Explosion

When re-using damaged or scored screen you should reduce the operating pressures and monitor carefully. You shouldn’t have to clean your filter core regularly since the material entering it should not be contaminated but on occasions when the screens burst, contaminated material will enter and block the core. It is then good practice to burn off and clean your core and pelletizing head as large pieces of wood or metal can enter the wedge in the holes, reducing throughput and cause another blockage. Usually a straightforward burn-off and jet wash will be adequate since there are no small holes to clean.

4: Burn off temperatures and times

For the best results when burning off your laser screens we have found that a temperature between 400-450 degrees centigrade works best. The oven should be slowly raised to this temperature and held there for around 3-4 hours. The oven should then be allowed to cool down gradually and not opened until the temperature falls below 250 Centigrade. This prevents flare-ups of any remaining plastics and rapid cooling of metal with the potential for warping and distortion. Larger items like the core, screens and blades with higher quantities of waste material to burn off may require longer to completely degrade the waste plastic. It is also important to allow sufficient space between items whilst in the oven so the heat can circulate properly and allow the molten plastic to melt away from the parts. Failure to do so can lead to an incomplete burn-off of the plastic contaminant on the items in the middle.

5: Ultrasonic cleaning and surface passivation

Traditional cleaning methodology for the filter discs tends to stop at a quick jet wash after burn off. Whilst this is fine for the heavy items like the core, blades, pelletising head and screws, the laser screens with their ultra fine mesh require a more complex multi-process clean. After burn-off and jet wash they still contain trapped, burnt carbonised plastic in the fine mesh and, if not dried properly, also rust heavily again blinding the micron sized holes. Ultrasonic cleaning in acid solution for around 3 hours cleans the screens to a near 100% cleanliness level. Furthermore, after the acid clean surface passivation in an rust inhibiting alkaline solution followed by a thorough drying ensures they remain clean and rust free until use. It is a classic case of the whole being greater than the sum of the parts. The whole process we employ to clean filter discs does take longer and cost more than the traditional method, but the benefits make the extra effort and cost well worth it. Laser filter screen lifetimes can be extended to double or triple compared to burning alone. Throughput can be increased by up to 20% because of reduced blinding. Extended times between blockages reduces downtime and bursts significantly. We know that the material type and quality going in has a lot to do with what goes on in the extruder, but a lot of that is out of your control. Maintenance of your hot melt filter line is something you can control. We hope the above tips are helpful.

If there’s anything you would like to ask us about the cleaning of your Erema discs and parts, we are more than happy to explore, advise and assist with whichever option works best for you and can offer hire or finance options. Contact our expert team today to discuss your requirements in more detail.

How to Dispose of Ultrasonic Cleaning Waste

When a business decides to take their ultrasonic cleaning in house, as well as knowing how to operate the machine, another thing they must consider is how they are going to dispose of their waste solution.

How you dispose of your solution will be dictated by whatever cleaning chemical you are using. It is always advised that you check with the chemical supplier on what the correct disposal method is for the specific product as there are many different types.

For example, the majority of chemicals we supply here at Sonic Solutions are biodegradable and not necessarily hazardous. As long as they are neutralised so the PH isn’t too high to either end they should be safe to put down a foul water drain.

HOWEVER…

Just because the cleaning chemical is not hazardous, it doesn’t mean your waste solution won’t be. A lot of times, the contaminants you are removing from your items can be classed as hazardous, and therefore should be disposed of by a licenced waste disposal company.

If you are having it disposed of by a waste collection company, you must make sure they are a licensed waste carrier and have the correct environmental permits.

Your company is still responsible for your waste even after it has left your site.

Just like with house clearances, there may be companies that offer a cheap waste collection service which may sound appealing, but if they then do not dispose of it correctly or even fly tip it, it is YOU that can be stuck with a hefty fine.

You must also consider how your waste is going to be stored on your site before it is disposed of. It should be stored in a secure location in a suitable container so there is no risk of it leaking/spilling. It should also be labeled clearly with what it is.

You should also keep a record of all the hazardous waste produced by your site which should be kept for 3 years.

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Welcome to the Sonic Solutions Knowledge Centre

Welcome to the Sonic Solutions Knowledge Center. This is the Go-To resource for Industrial Ultrasonic & Parts Cleaning and is updated regularly. If we haven’t already written about a particular aspect of Industrial Ultrasonic Cleaning, Pyrolysis, Thermal Stripping, Media Blasting or Jet Washing that you’re interested in, then please submit your enquiry here and one of our Industrial Cleaning Experts will take a look.