Filters

When we take our car into have the oil changed they’ll always put in a new oil filter and sometimes an air filter.  We pay for this without complaint because we know these items are necessary to kept the car running.  Unfortunately most of us don’t know that instead of changing the oil/filter every 3,000 miles, today’s motor oils are designed to hold up for between 50-100,000 miles.  All we really need to do is change out the filter and keep the oil level up.

Molding machines are run much harder than your car.  But how often do you clean the oil?  Or, better yet, when did you last change the machine’s oil filter? Most of you will say the filter in the system is working fine.  Always has, always will.  Go find your machine manual and see when the manufacturer recommends you swap out the filter for a new one.  Then check when the last time you did it.  Keeping the filters changed is good, but for a few thousand dollars you can buy an ultra high 2.0 or better micron filtering system that is portable.  You hook it into the machine, leave it in place for 24 hours then remove it and go onto the next machine.  This actually extends the life of the oil.  If you have 20+ machines this little toy will pay for itself by your not finding your oil is gummy and burnt when you annually send out samples for analysis.  When machines were made smaller so were the oil reservoirs.  The older machines with big reservoirs had baffles and they’d hold back the sludge.  Smaller tanks circulate sludge and gum up your valves.  If you don’t keep your oil clean your machine prematurely wears out.

All dryers have air filters.  Most of us know how dusty any plant is.  It therefore doesn’t take a genius to understand why there are filters on dryer units.  This keeps the dust and fines from contaminating the desiccant.  Dust on the desiccant not only inhibits its ability to do what it is supposed to do, but during the purge cycle the bed is heated to several hundred degrees to push out the chemically-bound water.  With enough dust, heat and oxygen the drier catches on fire.  Opps! I’ve seen it happen.  Not only is this embarrassing, but it also extends the life of the desiccant to several years instead of several months.

Changing filters and filtering oil should be done on a time dependant basis.  You’d be amazed at the amount of gunk you can fine in a new machine’s oil after a few hundred hours serious use.  You should be ashamed if you look at your dryers and see fur sticking to the filtering media because the dust is so thick.

You cannot compete in today’s climate with the ‘if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it’ mentality.  Filters are cheap while bad machine performance is expensive.  Preventative maintenance can turn into your competitive edge.

Think about it.

Contact me with questions put in the subject line QUESTIONS.
Bill Tobin, WJT Associates, E-mail: bill4012@hotmail.com