Air Chillers For Screen Printing Equipment
A screen printing shop functions just like any other business. There's a team of managers and employees and everyone serves a key function to make sure that profits are high and increasing. It is that same focus on margins and profits that puts an important aspect of a functioning business on the back burner, maintenance. This is the second article written on the topic of screen printing equipment maintenance and expect to see more coming. At Anatol, we believe that proper maintenance of all of your equipment is essential to running a smoother operation.
In a previous article we mentioned the importance of creating and managing a good maintenance schedule for your screen printing equipment. A system of checks to make sure your screen printing presses, dryers, flash cures, etc are all in good working condition.
This article is dedicated to another aspect of maintenance that is all too often overlooked. The majority of screen printing presses in operation today have some component that runs on compressed air. That air is fed gluttonously through a network of air hoses and splitters and originating from the air compressor. As air is compressed so it can be sent to power the various pneumatic parts on your press, it gets heated by the process of pressurization as a by-product of releasing energy through the process.
Why Warm Air is Bad
In the dead of winter, somewhere in the arctic, a lonely screen printing press operator might believe that hot air is good for the press. But that is just not true. The warm air in itself doesn't actually do anything to harm your equipment, but the moisture and the effects it has on your electrical systems and metal components are what you want to avoid.
Warm air in a humid environment carries in itself moisture and humidity that it picked up from the atmosphere.
In grade school, you learned about the three states of matter; solid, liquid and gas. As you heat matter, the molecules begin to move and separate transforming from a solid to a liquid which evaporates into gas. When you cool gas it becomes a liquid through the process of condensation.
Now imagine hot, compressed air traveling through a hose and into your screen printing equipment. The internal pneumatic parts of your machine are cold enough, even in a warm environment and during operation to cause some of that compressed air to condense into water.
That water is what can cause significant damage to your machine over a period of time. Water that drips from the fittings onto a circuit board can short it, possibly damaging other unrelated components as a side effect of faulty electric components. Metallic parts naturally corrode as they are exposed to increased levels of moisture mixed with air.
As you can see, moisture is a silent killer of your press and you won't know until the devastating effects a broken machine can have on your business.
Why an Air Chiller IS Important
Knowing that an air compressor sends warm air into your machine, and that cold machine can turn warm air into water which can damage your press, it is important to know that an air chiller is needed to cool and dry the air that your machine uses.
Sending cooler, dryer air will reduce the level of moisture and help give you the most life out of your investment.
How an Air Chiller Works... Simplified
We know the main function of the air chiller is to cool and dry air sent from an air compressor. The chiller actually also has a secondary function and I will touch on that soon. An air chiller works kind of like a refrigerator, using a heat exchange process to cool the air going into it. The heat exchanger inside an air chiller takes warm air and passes it over a refrigerant to cool it, that cooler air exits and travels to your press.
This is where the secondary function of an air chiller happens. The inbound pipe carrying the warm air passes by the outbound pipe carrying the colder air. This proximity allows for an heat exchange to happen as air enters and leaves the chiller. The warmer air gets pre-chilled before entering the chiller so the chiller doesn't have to work as hard cooling and saving you money. The exiting air gets to benefit from a slight warmup as it heads towards your presses. Remember that cold air condenses while slightly warmer air stays in the form of a gas. You want to ideally keep the compressed air you use within an acceptable temperature range so that it isn't too cold or too hot.
Air that is colder than the pipes it travels through will create condensation on the outside of the pipes. To give you a good example, think about a pint of your favorite brew. When it is a perfectly cold temperature little beads of sweat like water will form on the outside of your glass. The ice cold liquid inside the glass is turning the moisture around the outside into water. This same effect can happen on your machine and that is something you want to avoid too.
The good news is that chillers are engineered in a way will send air at the right temperature.
Downtime is a Game Killer
Remember that downtime can have hugely negative impacts on your business and your profit. You want to take care of your presses and dryers but you also want to take good care of your air compressor and air chiller as well. A good maintenance schedule for all of your screen printing equipment will have long lasting effects and ensure that all of your machines are running smoothly for a long time. Protect your presses and invest in an air chiller. That small additional cost now will save tons of money on repairs and lost revenue later.
