Surface World July 2019 Surface World July 2019 | Page 193

the cleanliness of our products and pride ourselves on being able to deliver products to our customers which meet the ever increasing cleanliness requirements”, said Michael Gillbee, Manufacturing Engineering Manager at HydraForce. Until now, five cleaning systems from MecWash Systems Ltd., which has been a Hydraforce supplier for 19 years, were used for this purpose at the facilities in Birmingham (England) and Changzhou (China). The systems The rod transducers can be operated independently or simultaneously. manufacturer with global The latter makes it possible to meet high cleanliness requirements in short operations specialises cycle times with a broad component spectrum. (Image source: MecWash in the development and Systems Limited) manufacture of aqueous cleaning systems for complex solutions from Weber Ultrasonics AG. “We have components and parts that are required to meet been working with this manufacturer’s products for strict cleanliness specifications both reliably and a long time and have always been more than economically. satisfied by their high quality. We have also been The constantly growing demand for their hydraulic components meant that Hydraforce recently had to expand its manufacturing capacities. This also involved the investment in a new cleaning system from MecWash. “The new system should firstly be capable of cleaning a very large number of components both quickly and efficiently. However, it must also be able to reliably work to stricter cleanliness requirements than we generally see today,” reports John Pattison, Director at MecWash. The soiling to be removed comprises swarf, oil and cooling lubricant residues, as well as brazing residue. Faster and cleaner thanks to twin-frequency ultrasonic output The system manufacturer designed a single- chamber cleaning unit for this task which employs an aqueous medium. Depending on the component, cleaning is performed as set parts or goods in bulk. To cater to both the quantitative and qualitative requirements, the new system employs twin-frequency ultrasonic output. In terms of the ultrasonic components, MecWash went with twitter: @surfaceworldmag impressed by the technical expertise of their employees. Last but not least, their service is always available quickly when we need it,” comments John Pattison, explaining the reasons why MecWash decided to go with the component manufacturer from Karlsbad in Southern Germany. Two Sonopush Mono HD rod transducers, each with 25 kHz (1,500 W) and 40 kHz (1,200 W) output, are integrated into the system’s chamber. These patented Heavy Duty rod transducers can be used up to temperatures of 95°C and also work reliably in 24-hour continuous operation. They therefore meet the strictest cleanliness requirements with shorter cleaning cycles and greater throughput. The ultrasonic solution is rounded off by power-adjusted Sonic Digital HS2 generators. On the system component, designed as an integrable, top hat rail-compatible unit, the power output can be controlled in the range from 50 to 100 percent in 1% steps. This facilitates optimum matching to parts-specific cleaning programmes. CONTINUED ON PAGE 192 2019 - 2020 191