Suppliers | Products | Articles | Contact Us
Process Cleaning Magazine
© 2012
AMT-The Association For Manufacturing Technology
[ Log On ]
PC FEATURE
Table 1 Technical data.
EGAclean4100.
Parts after cleaning.
Table 2 Cost data.
Technoturn is a company in Hastings (England), which has been producing precision turned parts for 10 years—mainly for the automotive industry. In 1998, when Technoturn CEO Fred Moser found an article about nonstop production using CNC machines, he began the process of investing in this technology, thinking, “Why shouldn’t we do the same?”
Although continuous investment in CNC machines led to strong growth and an increased range of products from 13 to 17 inches in diameter, higher output required Technoturn to solve some other problems, like parts cleaning—specifically the turned parts that were full of oil and chips after manufacturing. David Mcllwain, director of Technoturn, looked for an efficient, fast (six to 12 minutes on average), economical and environmentally friendly cleaning machine that would have practically no solvent consumption (achieved through distillation) and would keep parts free of chips—even in recess holes.
The answer to Mcllwain’s problem was to be found in Amsonic’s fully automatic EGAclean equipment distributed in Great Britain by Haesler Machine Tools. EGAclean, the hydrocarbon technology from Amsonic (a Swiss company), is the result of applied research aimed at eliminating toxic chlorinated solvents. “Previously, we were cleaning parts manually with trichloroethylene. The EGAclean machine cleans the production over the weekend and is finished by Monday morning. Our customers get clean parts and we save manpower. The productivity and efficiency of the EGAclean machine is exceptionally high,” says Mcllwain.
The mono-chamber equipment EGAclean 4100 uses isoparaffine, a non-chlorinated
hydrocarbon solvent (A3 type). The very compact machine has improved the
cleaning quality, when compared with the trichloroethylene cleaning, with the
following steps:
1. Immersion cleaning in hot solvent (under vacuum over the flash-point) with ultrasonics and microfiltration
2. Vapor phase
3. Vacuum drying The equipment is fully encapsulated and operated under vacuum, which makes it perfectly safe.
The machine has two tanks—one for precleaning and one for final cleaning. The advantage lies in the fact that clean solvent is always available from the clean tank. The capacity of distillation guarantees that the full content of the tanks will be distilled every day. The quality of the distillation means that the same solvent can be kept for a number of years and allows use of smaller tanks. The sump of the distillation (approximately 0.50 gallons per year) is compensated with fresh solvent. No stabilizers are needed because the isoparaffine can not become acidic. Other A3 solvents may be used for specific applications.
Filtration removes particles down to 50 micrometers on the parts. The movement of the basket can vary in speed and mode— static, oscillating or rotating. The basket is chosen with the optimum mesh size, in order to separate the chips from the parts.
The process control includes 99 programs and is user friendly. The solvent’s temperature can be varied for specific applications, in order to improve the solvency of the soils. The nanofilm of isoparaffine protects the parts against corrosion for approximately one month.
The cleaning quality allows for any further process like plating, CVD and PVD coating,
welding, thermic operations or gluing. All these processes are in use after the EGAclean cleaning machines. According to Mcllwain, the advantages of using an Amsonic machine were great. “With the previous system there was toxicity with the trichloroethylene, but now it has been eliminated.” He also adds that the machine has allowed for faster cleaning when compared with the usual manual operation; this in turn has saved manpower and solvent with a payback period of approximately one year. “Customer satisfaction is now greater. The Amsonic EGAclean has greatly improved the whole quality of our cleaning process.” Following the positive experience made with the EGAclean at Hastings, Technoturn has recently purchased a second machine of the same type for its other manufacturing facility at Rugby.
Jean-François Fallot is with Amsonic Inc. (Biel, Switzerland). He can be reached at +011 41 32 344 35 00 or visit the Web site at www.amsonic.com. To contact Amsonic in the U.S., Canada and Mexico, call Martin Horn, manufacturer’s representative, c/o BDI, Inc., at (406) 626-1515.
Although continuous investment in CNC machines led to strong growth and an increased range of products from 13 to 17 inches in diameter, higher output required Technoturn to solve some other problems, like parts cleaning—specifically the turned parts that were full of oil and chips after manufacturing. David Mcllwain, director of Technoturn, looked for an efficient, fast (six to 12 minutes on average), economical and environmentally friendly cleaning machine that would have practically no solvent consumption (achieved through distillation) and would keep parts free of chips—even in recess holes.
The answer to Mcllwain’s problem was to be found in Amsonic’s fully automatic EGAclean equipment distributed in Great Britain by Haesler Machine Tools. EGAclean, the hydrocarbon technology from Amsonic (a Swiss company), is the result of applied research aimed at eliminating toxic chlorinated solvents. “Previously, we were cleaning parts manually with trichloroethylene. The EGAclean machine cleans the production over the weekend and is finished by Monday morning. Our customers get clean parts and we save manpower. The productivity and efficiency of the EGAclean machine is exceptionally high,” says Mcllwain.
The mono-chamber equipment EGAclean 4100 uses isoparaffine, a non-chlorinated
hydrocarbon solvent (A3 type). The very compact machine has improved the
cleaning quality, when compared with the trichloroethylene cleaning, with the
following steps:
1. Immersion cleaning in hot solvent (under vacuum over the flash-point) with ultrasonics and microfiltration
2. Vapor phase
3. Vacuum drying The equipment is fully encapsulated and operated under vacuum, which makes it perfectly safe.
A New Generation of Cleaning Equipment
The EGAclean concept of Amsonic uses the high temperature of isoparaffine (A3-type), to increase its oil solvency. The continuous distillation saves solvent and guarantees a constant cleaning quality. It separates oil and the oils from the solvent. The efficiency of isoparaffine is even better when non-chlorinated oils are used in manufacturing.The machine has two tanks—one for precleaning and one for final cleaning. The advantage lies in the fact that clean solvent is always available from the clean tank. The capacity of distillation guarantees that the full content of the tanks will be distilled every day. The quality of the distillation means that the same solvent can be kept for a number of years and allows use of smaller tanks. The sump of the distillation (approximately 0.50 gallons per year) is compensated with fresh solvent. No stabilizers are needed because the isoparaffine can not become acidic. Other A3 solvents may be used for specific applications.
Filtration removes particles down to 50 micrometers on the parts. The movement of the basket can vary in speed and mode— static, oscillating or rotating. The basket is chosen with the optimum mesh size, in order to separate the chips from the parts.
The process control includes 99 programs and is user friendly. The solvent’s temperature can be varied for specific applications, in order to improve the solvency of the soils. The nanofilm of isoparaffine protects the parts against corrosion for approximately one month.
The cleaning quality allows for any further process like plating, CVD and PVD coating,
welding, thermic operations or gluing. All these processes are in use after the EGAclean cleaning machines. According to Mcllwain, the advantages of using an Amsonic machine were great. “With the previous system there was toxicity with the trichloroethylene, but now it has been eliminated.” He also adds that the machine has allowed for faster cleaning when compared with the usual manual operation; this in turn has saved manpower and solvent with a payback period of approximately one year. “Customer satisfaction is now greater. The Amsonic EGAclean has greatly improved the whole quality of our cleaning process.” Following the positive experience made with the EGAclean at Hastings, Technoturn has recently purchased a second machine of the same type for its other manufacturing facility at Rugby.
Jean-François Fallot is with Amsonic Inc. (Biel, Switzerland). He can be reached at +011 41 32 344 35 00 or visit the Web site at www.amsonic.com. To contact Amsonic in the U.S., Canada and Mexico, call Martin Horn, manufacturer’s representative, c/o BDI, Inc., at (406) 626-1515.