PriceFitters will be exhibiting in the North Hall of McCormick Place during the upcoming NPE show in June. We'll have 400 sq. ft. of space, and plenty of people on hand to help you with your tubing component needs. If you'll be visiting the show, please stop by and see us in BOOTH 86030.
Please join us at the PLASTEC Midwest show, September 23-25, 2008 at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont (Chicago), IL. Simply click the link next to the coupon below to visit the show web site where you will find detailed information and easy online registration for complimentary expo hall admission- a $45 savings!
We look forward to seeing you in Rosemont (Chicago), September 23-25, 2008!
CLICK HERE FOR FREE SHOW ADMISSION!
For conveying today’s highly abrasive engineered resins, in particular glass fiber reinforced resins, PriceFitters offers wear resistant elbows. Known in the industry as "porcelain-lined," "ceramic-lined," or "glass-lined" elbows, these components are a proven solution to elbow wear.
Resin pellets generally travel at speeds between 3,500 and 5,500 feet per minute when conveyed pneumatically in dilute phase systems. As they travel, they come in contact with the inner wall of the conveying tube, especially when they reach an elbow. Highly abrasive materials conveyed in this manner can wear standard aluminum and stainless steel elbows prematurely.
For these types of applications, PriceFitters offers wear resistant elbows consisting of a steel elbow with a 0.004-0.007" thick coating of porcelain enamel on the inside surface of the tube. Our single coat, wear resistant elbows deliver approximately 12 times the service life of a standard stainless steel elbow, which can help eliminate downtime and maintenance costs.
Porcelain enamel is a borosilicate glass frit that is applied evenly to the tube wall at temperatures in excess of 900° F. Porcelain enamel provides a high resistance to abrasion due to its high surface hardness (6-7 on the MOHS Hardness Scale), resistance to gouging or crushing of its underlying enamel structure, and excellent lubricity which allows for pellets to slide along the wall with very little friction.
PriceFitters offers in-stock, wear resistant elbows in standard radius sizes from 1.5" OD through 4"OD. In addition, alternate radius bends, as well as fittings and transitions, may be ordered with either single (0.004-0.007") or double (0.008-0.012") enamel lining. Available base materials are limited to carbon or stainless steel due to the high temperature required when affixing the enamel.
SEE AVAILABLE WEAR RESISTANT PARTS HERE
After a relaxing holiday season, the PriceFitters team is back and ready for an invigorating New Year. We'll be all over the country in the next few months with tradeshows in Anaheim, Charlotte, Boston (Fitchburg), Mexico City, and Milwaukee. Stop by and see us if you're in the area!
We have a lot of good ideas in the works for 2008. We've listened to some concerns and suggestions, and plan on taking our product offering one step further. If there's anything you like or would like improved, please don't hesistate on contacting us by leaving a comment, emailing request@pricefitters.com, or giving us a call at 1.888.210.8695.
Check out our Instaloks in use:
In a previous posting to this blog we requested that readers who have experienced issues with angel hair, streamers, or snakeskins write to us about their experiences and any solutions that they have applied.
 One of the solutions that PriceFitters supplies is directional shot peening. The directional shot peening process is designed to roughen up the internal surface of conveying line tubing and fittings. During dilute phase pneumatic conveying, resin pellets travel at high rates of speed through the conveying lines. These high rates of speed result in heat developing from the friction between resin pellets, the tubing wall, and the conveying air. In turn, this heat causes the resin pellets to soften. When the softened pellets come in contact with the tube wall they slide leaving a smear of material behind, and over time the smears agglomerate or meld together to form strands of material that can fall into the air stream in the form of "angel hair" or "streamers". When the internal surface of the conveying tube is directionally shot peened, the interior surface of the tube becomes irregular and rough. As a result the resin pellet tends to tumble and bounce away from the tube wall instead of smearing against it. Ultimately, this reduces the occurrence of angel hair.
If you have had experience with directional shot peening or one of the alternative methods used to roughen up internal tube surfaces, we would love to hear about it.
Experts say the initial design of your resin transfer tubing system is the most critical aspect to reducing the occurrence of streamers. However, if you’re the typical processor, your resin transfer system is already installed and was designed to meet your requirements at the time of installation, although those system requirements have probably since changed.
So, let’s say you’ve launched a new product made from a softer form of plastic and now, all of the sudden, you’re starting to see increased amounts of angel hair in your system and the resulting line blockages. What do you do?
Some of the potential solutions we’ve heard about at Pricefitters.com include treating the interior surface of the tube to reduce the amount of contact between the pellet and the tube wall or installing heat exchangers to lower the temperature inside the conveying tube. How effective have these treatments been for you?
Many problems in the pneumatic conveying of resin centers around material build-up in the lines. Often times lines get contaminated from a shredded gasket (unless the Instalok coupling is used), long thin lines of resin, tiny particles of resin, dust, etc. These unwanted materials have been called many different things: fines, dust, tails, streamers, angel-hair, snakeskins, etc. But what exactly is the difference between these terms? Is there one?
From my understanding, streamers, angel-hair, and snakeskins are essentially the same thing. During conveying, heat develops due to friction between the resin pellets, the tubing wall and the conveying air. This friction heat in turn causes the resin pellets to soften. When the softened resin pellets come in contact with the tube wall, they smear and over time the smears become strands of material that fall into the air stream in the form of angelhair or snakeskins. This can result in line blockages that may ultimately reduce the efficiency of the resin transfer system.
Fines appear to be the catch-all phrase for material that isn’t an intact resin pellet, but isn’t as long as a streamer. Tails are a more specific form of a fine – when the pellets are cut, at times the cut isn’t clean and results in a little material left at the end of the cut. Tails and fines, in theory, seem to be less of a problem than streamers in terms of pipe blockage and material build-up because of their respective size.
What’s your experience with angel-hair or fines been? What solutions have worked for you if it’s a problem?
A few weeks ago, our Product Manager and Communications Coordinator ventured to Orangeville, Ontario to visit a Plastiflex plant for a case study on our Instalok coupling. When the Instalok originally hit the market, this Plastiflex plant was one of the first companies to incorporate the Instalok in their plant. We did a case study four years ago that found the Instalok worked successfully while saving Plastiflex both time and money.
 Since then, Plastiflex has installed new material transfer lines and done some rearranging. We wanted to see if the Instaloks held up after four years, could be successfully reused, and were still performing well.
Even we were surprised at the findings: the Plastiflex maintenance manager told us that reinstallation of the Instaloks took about one fourth the time that it would have taken if using compression or 3 bolt couplings. All they had to do was loosen the two bolts, give "a little tug and flex", and reinstall. On the other hand, the compression couplings took forever because the gaskets needed scraped from the tube and to install, the usual bolt-tightening dance had to be performed. They're still using a lot of the original Instaloks as well.
We also discovered many other great things about the Instalok, so if you're really interested, check out our new case study or call us for a free sample of the Instalok. As always, feel free to leave a comment about your own experience!
The Instalok coupling is billed as the first major innovation in tube coupling technology in over 50 years and is one of our feature products at pricefitters.com. We are often asked why the Instalok is a feature product and why is it rapidly becoming the coupling of choice for plastic processors. We believe its simplicity of design, ease of installation, and durability warrant its status as a feature product. In our estimation, it shouldn't require engineering skills to connect two pieces of tube and it certainly shouldn't be as time consuming as it is to install a standard compression coupling. However, our customers that use the Instalok aren't comfortable with so simple an answer and claim there are many more advantages:
1.Better overall system performance. Since the Instalok uses an O-ring seal instead of a gasket, there's a better seal in both the vacuum and pressure environments. The O-ring also reduces the water seepage found at times in outside applications.
2. Less dust and fines generation: the Instalok is designed to automatically align tube ends, so there's less of an opportunity for pellet shear.
3. Reduced contamination: Instaloks' metal on metal clamp provides a positive engagement that greatly reduces tube movement. As a result, there's a reduced opportunity for pockets to develop where pellets can be trapped during line purges. Additionally, with no gasket, the threat of abraded gasket material in the line - and thus in the end product - is eliminated.
The list goes on, but we love hearing feedback about our products. If you have an Instalok experience or a question/comment about the Instalok, just let us know. If you haven't had the chance to try out an Instalok on your lines, give us a call and we'll send you out a free sample. See for yourself why it's our feature product.
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