Maintenance Tip #33: Stop your profits from leaking away.
That's not abstract art. It’s a profit-sucking leak – and you could have one without even knowing.
Abrasives, over time, wear holes through any surface of your blast equipment, even inside a high quality, abrasion-resistant cyclonic reclaimer, like this UltraWear™ lined one from Empire.
When a hole appears in the reclaimer’s “suck-out tube,” the good abrasive that's mixed with dust bypasses the reclaimer through the breach, and is shunted directly to your dust collector, where it all gets throw out with the trash. As a result, you may find operators wanting to “top off” the abrasive storage hopper much too frequently – and usage, disposal, and freight costs escalate.
So you lose all the benefits of the reclaimer, which should be extracting wasteful dust from good abrasive every cycle.
There are many lines of defense to protect these wear spots:
Buy the upgrades that extend reclaimer life. On direct-pressure systems, that includes replacing the exhaust valve “restrictor kit” with one made of boron carbide – so the reclaimer doesn’t get blasted with supersonic abrasive every time the cycle ends. This $175 item will vastly prolong the life of a lined reclaimer costing thousands.
Power up PRS (pneumatic abrasive recovery) systems only when you actually recover media from the walk-in blast room. Why run the PRS for eight hours a day when it needs only minutes every hour to convey abrasive? That’ll save more than 1500 hours of wear and tear yearly under normal conditions. (Unwarranted "on-time" is the likely cause of the wear that’s shown in the photo.)
Partner with a reputable distributor for after-sales service – and insist on machine commissioning – reviewing (in detail) procedures with operators and maintenance personnel alike. Knowlegable workers will increase production and minimize downtime. They'll know they are listened to and that they factor into the well running of the system. Training is key and we do that as a free service - and I continue to re-train “new hires” of loyal customers.
Get to know DM PM. That is, Dawson-Macdonald Preventive Maintenance. Our expert technicians travel the Northeast on “planned maintenance” inspections – servicing equipment before it gets to the “hopeless” stage. Their eagle eyes detect all kinds of costly problems – before troubles start to drain your wallet. Our techs know exactly where to look - even in such a remote and hard to access area like the reclaimer dust tube.
Feel free to contact me for consultation; especially if your operations are in the Northeast US.
© 2015 Mark Hanna and BlastPrep.com
