So it's all here and running! Our new Eco-Tex. We aren't the sized shop where this machine is a necessity, but I like automating things and cutting down on the number of employees needed.
So when I was trying to find information on this unit with any sort of decent pictures I couldn't so ask me for any pictures you want to see.
Unit is LARGE. 42x180 inches long with just the one in/out feed. If you have both feeds you need 250inches, plus they say 3 feet all the way around the unit.
Note: Unit states it needs 30CFM of air. It doesn't unless you are running the air nozzles. Most people do not run them, as it would blow air on your screen either after the chemical wash (not helping the chemical to eat at the emulsion in my opinion) or after the screen is done...which isn't necessary as we do a final rinse afterwards.
Matt from M&R did our install, Alex Mammoser from Easiway fine tuned our chemical mixture and helped us find a new Dual Cure that would work well with the unit.
Install was easy. Basically 8 bolts and the whole thing goes together. Level the unit. Make sure your pumps are going the correct direction, if not switch two lines on your 3 phase.
There is a 100 Gallon chemical tank. Mix 60 Gallons of water, 1 Quart of Easiway 55... yes 1 quart. (We ended up using 2, but that was too hot) 40 gals of 701 ink remover.
On right right side about a 8 gallon discharge tank for all the waste water, as a side note make sure you have good sewer lines as the discharge pumps water out quick, or slow the pump down by reducing pressure.
Emulsions that don't work well with these chemicals are Wr-14, Sp1400, and UCD2.
The two emulsions we have found that work well are our standard Chromablue, and now we are switching to CP-Tex which seems to be reclaiming fine.
Right now our settings have this machine producing two screens every 5 minutes or so. Which doubles what our old 10$ an hour employee could do. In all honestly though I don't think I will save any money on chemicals, and I may actually spend more money in water used, but that also depends on how you were reclaiming before.
Our previous setup was the pump/spray on method, but we used very little chemicals. Our pressure washer was a 2gpm commercial washer and the chromablue emulsion just melted off.
The eco-tex uses a 1200psi pressure washer, but it has 4 nozzles, I think I am using right about 6 gallons of fresh water per cycle (2 screens). I'll need to do some more measuring, but I think this is about a gallon per screen more of water.
The 100 gallon tank of chemicals are recirculated through pressure bars, then you wait for chemical drip off. (All of it doesn't make it back to the tank) Then the pressure washing cycle started. We got about 230 cycles before we needed to fill 40 gallons of chemical mixture back into the tank.
I'll make a quick video of the machine in action if anyone wants to see the unit actually working as again there wasn't really anything I could find on youtube besides the M&R video which really didn't explain anything.
