Customer Background
Customer is a global provider of cold-formed, near net-shape components for various markets. Most of their business is in the automotive industry for frame, chassis, drivetrain, and suspension products; but other industries are served as well.
Challenge
The customer was seeking a system to clean oil and phosphate from cold-formed alloy carbon parts and to add a rust inhibitor at a rate of 960 parts per hour. Parts needed to be visually clean and rust-prevented. Residual moisture was acceptable.
Solution
Alliance provided customer with a CB-1800E conveyorized belt cleaning system with wash, rust inhibit, and ambient blowoff zones. This machine had a custom tight-weave stainless steel belt to accommodate small parts. An adjustable lane divider was also added to the conveyor for segregating parts to be cleaned. Stainless steel spray nozzles are positioned above, below, and to the sides of the conveyor belt in both the wash and rust inhibit zones for 360° spray coverage. Strainer baskets remove larger particles from solution, while stainless steel micro-filtration chambers were added in both zones to remove smaller particles. Three high-velocity air knives in the ambient blowoff zone strip moisture from parts. Options included in the design were a photo-eye product sensor at the load end to turn on pumps and blowers in sequence, and a PLC control package with touch-screen user interface. An oil coalescing system was also added to aid in oil removal and keep the wash solution clean.
