Offline Cartridge Filter Cleaning

by Erin Long | Jan 13, 2020 | Uncategorized

If you have a cartridge dust collector, you’re probably aware of the compressed air pulses that clean the filters. Although our header tank design controls noise levels, the cleaning mechanism isn’t exactly silent. If the dust collector pulse cleans the cartridge filters during normal operation, why would you need to run an offline filter cleaning?

Offline cleaning of your cartridge filters can remove extra dust from the filters, improve efficiency, and increase filter life. Keep reading to learn how offline cleaning works and what it can do to keep those expensive cartridge filters in service longer.

What is offline filter cleaning?

Offline cleaning means cleaning the filters while the dust collector is not in operation. For some baghouses, the fan can only clean the bags when they are offline. These baghouses have separate sections, and one section goes offline for cleaning at a time. Because this means part of the baghouse needs to shut down often, the system operates less efficiently. Some baghouse designs to avoid this and clean all the filters while still in operation.

For cartridge dust collection systems, offline cleaning means pulsing the filters with compressed air while the system fan is shut off. With no air moving through the system, equal pressure exists on the clean air and dirty air side of the filters. No air is pulling through the filters.

Why is offline cleaning good for cartridge filters?

With the dust collection system online, the pulses of compressed air blow down through the cartridge filters to remove dust. At the same time, however, the air being cleaned moves in the opposite direction, upwards through the filters.

Online pulse cleaning keeps the filters working well while the dust collector operates. However, the compressed air pulse and the system airflow move in opposite directions. To get maximum cleaning power from the compressed air pulses, run a quick offline cleaning.

With the system shut down, no airflow blows back against the compressed air pulse. This lets it release more dust from the filters. Regular offline cleaning can extend filter life significantly by removing this extra dust.

What if we don’t have time for offline filter cleaning?

Taking your dust collection system offline for filter cleaning doesn’t have to take a lot of time. Our service technicians recommend that for offline cleaning, you manually pulse the filters twice. Often, you can do this in less than ten minutes of downtime.

Employee break time or lunchtime can allow you to shut your dust collector down for a short time. On a dust collector with an integrated control panel, manually running two compressed air pulses just takes the push of a button.

After a short offline cleaning, the cartridge filters should work more efficiently. While online cleaning will keep filters working, regular offline cleaning makes them last longer. Also, keeping the filters at maximum efficiency helps to protect HEPA or other expensive after-filters.

Need some personal advice about offline cartridge filter cleaning?

You can contact us here at Imperial Systems for advice on keeping your filters performing well. If you need more help or would like a hands-on education in dust collector maintenance, our ServiceMAXX team can pay a visit and help you establish a maintenance schedule.

If you take the time to run offline filter cleaning, you should see it pay off in longer filter life. Not only does this save money, but it also cuts down on the much longer downtime needed to replace old filters. If you have questions about how often you should run offline cleaning or any other questions about your dust and fume collection system, please contact us.

Factory Dust Control and Your Daughter’s Annoying Boyfriend

by Erin Long | Jan 7, 2020 | Uncategorized

OK, stay with me for a minute. Any factory that produces dust needs some type of industrial factory dust control. Now, that dust from your factory processes may not eat all your leftover spaghetti or drive an obnoxiously loud car. But it does have some things in common with that guy your daughter keeps bringing around.

Without factory dust extraction, dust will settle and lay on every flat surface in your facility. Likewise, without a method for removal, the annoying boyfriend will find a flat surface, sprawl out on it, and stare at his phone. If you don’t capture dust at the source, it will escape into the factory and become a cleanup problem. In the same way, if you don’t deter the annoying boyfriend at the front door while attempting to enter, he will come inside, hog the Netflix, and mumble about memes he saw on Instagram.

See? They do have something in common.

Factory Dust Collection: Will It Remove Annoying Teenagers?

Unfortunately, an industrial dust collection system will not remove your daughter’s annoying boyfriend. It will, though, extract dust and fumes. In many factories, dust control comes down to basic housekeeping, like sweeping or vacuuming up dust.

Unfortunately, poking the annoying boyfriend with a broom will not get rid of him. Vacuuming his face with a shop vac seems to be frowned upon. Brooms and shop vacs in your factory will spread dust around, but not remove much of it. If you want to really control dust (or your daughter’s boyfriend), you can’t just move it around.

Unlike boyfriends, who usually settle on couches, airborne dust settles on beams, overhead lights, and other places almost impossible to reach with basic cleaning. In the event of an explosion, this dust can shake loose and disperse in the air. This can cause a deadly secondary explosion when this loose dust ignites.

(Side note: if you attempt to force your daughter’s boyfriend to become airborne, your daughter will probably create an emotional explosion, which you will then have to deal with.)

Dust Collection and Control

Once that boyfriend is in the door and sprawled in your living room eating your last blueberry muffin, you’re going to have a hard time getting rid of him. And once dust covers your factory, you’ll have an uphill battle trying to control it.

Fortunately, we can often identify where most of the dust originates. Many factories will have certain processes that put a lot of dust into the air. Examples include grinding, batch mixing, material transport, etc.

Source Capture

Installing an industrial dust collector allows you to capture dust or fumes at the source. This is called source capture and can use hoods, downdraft tables, or flexible fume arms.

Using source capture to control factory dust helps control worker exposure. This benefits people who work close to the machines. But it also benefits those in other areas of the factory from contaminants that can drift through the air.

Sadly, this method will not protect anyone from the horrific music that your daughter and her boyfriend contaminate your house with. The recommended solution for this problem is to use earplugs. If this method is not effective, covertly snipping a few wires and blaming it on mice can be useful.

Ambient Collection

Another option for industrial dust and fume collection in factories is an ambient system. This removes and cleans air from the entire facility. Many systems return the air to the facility after filtering it, which saves heating or cooling costs. For a factory that often has a haze of dust or fumes in the air, this type of system can clear things up effectively.

This type of system will not remove annoying teenage boyfriends. But it could be used to remove dirty t-shirt odor, smoke from over-microwaved pizza rolls, and teenage boy sneaker stench. An industrial dust and fume collection system wouldn’t be cost-effective for these purposes. So, you are probably stuck with air freshener and opening the windows.

A Safety and Health Issue

Factory workers may face serious health risks from exposure to dust and fumes. In addition, combustible dust creates an environment where a fire or explosion could occur. We won’t include any boyfriend jokes here, because combustible dust accidents cause fatalities every year in the United States alone.

If the boyfriend is inhaling some sort of harmful fumes, he’s probably doing it on purpose, but workers exposed to industrial dust and fumes don’t have a choice. A factory dust extraction system will remove those harmful materials from the work area.

Some factories use dust suppression, which usually means spraying a fine water mist to take the dust and fumes out of the air. This leaves damp dust accumulated around the facility that still needs to be cleaned up. While a sprinkler system can be a critical part of fire control, water misting doesn’t get dust out of the building.

(Side note: try misting the annoying boyfriend with water, which may be an effective deterrent, since it works on the cat.)

(Side side note: contact us at Imperial Systems to talk about a factory dust control system, and don’t shop vac your daughter’s boyfriend, as we will not be held liable for what happens if you do.)

(Side side side note: We do want to see a video of it on YouTube though)

Shop Dust Safety is Like Baby Proofing Your House

by Erin Long | Dec 19, 2019 | Uncategorized

Have you ever gone through your house and tried to spot everything that a curious baby might get into? If you’re looking at dust safety in your shop, start thinking about dust like a baby who just figured out how to open the kitchen drawers and pull things off the coffee table.

Like your adorable little force of destruction, dust in your shop can get into things you didn’t even think of. A dust hazard analysis is the first step in creating a shop safe from combustible dust hazards. Once you’ve identified possible problems, you can start fixing them.

Dust-Proofing Your Shop for Safety

Before the end of 2020, NFPA standards will require all dust-producing businesses to have a dust hazard analysis. A dust hazard analysis means going through the facility and identifying anywhere that dust could present a danger in the shop.

It’s important to identify whether your dust is combustible, but even noncombustible dust presents a safety issue in the shop. Finding every possible dust safety risk seems impossible. Of course, if you’ve ever tried to baby-proof a house with a curious little monster exploring everything, you know there’s always something you didn’t think of.

Shop dust safety requires ongoing work and awareness. If you’re baby-proofing, you may think you’ve gotten everything out of reach or locked away. Ten minutes later, you’ll be confiscating a bottle of laundry detergent that seems to have appeared out of nowhere.

Shop dust pulls the same kind of tricks. After you and your staff have put in hours of work cleaning up accumulated dust, or you’ve made a big investment in a dust collection system, dust will show up in places you didn’t expect.

The Ongoing Process of Shop Dust Safety

As soon as you think your home is baby-proof, you’ll turn around and realize you have a toddler who can now reach all kinds of new, exciting things. Your shop might experience some growth and changes, too. New processes or new machines can create new shop dust hazards.

To protect your newly mobile little darling, you’ll start finding hazards you hadn’t recognized before. After all, your crawling baby couldn’t yank houseplants off the coffee table. Every time something changes in your shop, new dust hazards could appear.

That doesn’t mean you’re being irresponsible. It just means that you need to reassess the problems and keep them under control. Just like a parent, you’ll have to keep adapting to change. Growing pains happen to children and to businesses.

Steps for a Dust Hazard Analysis

Lots of parenting magazines can guide you through baby-proofing the house. You have many resources available to help you conduct a dust hazard analysis. To start, here are a few important places to start looking for possible shop dust problems:

• Machines or processes that are producing dust in the facility
• Places where dust accumulates (in corners, under things, on overhead lights or beams)
• Possible ignition sources (sparks, heaters, hot surfaces)
• Shop activities that might spread dust or make it airborne (blowing with compressed air)
• Activities that need to be assessed for possible hazards (hot work that could ignite dust)
• Places where staff education is needed (housekeeping, situational awareness)

Shop dust safety should start with engineering controls if possible, as recommended by OSHA and the NFPA. A well-designed dust collection system will remove airborne dust before it can escape and accumulate around the shop. Source capture hoods can be put over machines that produce problem dust.

Parents probably wish we made a CMAXX that could clean up after a toddler. Unfortunately, no piece of equipment we’ve ever seen can keep up with that kind of disaster. There’s not much that can manage a two-year-old who tries to flush dinosaur toys down the toilet and throws pudding at the cat.

At least we can help you with your shop dust safety.

Look around our website and explore our CMAXX, Shadow, and BRF dust collectors. Feel free to call, and one of our equipment specialists will help you determine how to address your shop dust control. Check out this OSHA link for more information about dust hazard analysis.

As for the baby-proofing, we can only wish you luck.

How Does A Cartridge Type Dust Collector Work?

by Erin Long | Dec 12, 2019 | Uncategorized

The cartridge-type dust collector has become a popular option for industrial dust and fume control. How does this type of collector work, and why would you want to use one?

In many industries, people recognize the term “baghouse” as a general type of dust collector. If you are looking for information about how a baghouse works, please see our baghouses blog post. Sometimes, we find that when people refer to baghouses, they may use the term for all industrial dust collectors. A cartridge collector offers advantages you may want to consider.

What is a Cartridge Type Dust Collector?

An industrial cartridge-type dust collector uses pleated filters. Usually round but sometimes oval or other shapes, these capture dust or fumes on their outside surface. Many have a metal mesh called expanded metal, which may be on the inside, outside, or both. Some do not have expanded metal, and instead, use fabric bands to keep their shape.

Cartridge filters are made from a blend of polyester and cellulose. Manufacturers apply coatings to this material. Nanofiber coating increases filtration efficiency. Spunbond material offers improved durability under some harsh conditions. Less common materials include PTFE (nonstick) coating and hydrophobic/oleophobic (water and oil resistant).

Because of the pleated material, these filters provide much more surface area for filtration. With baghouse filters, you need a lot of bags to equal the surface area of a pleated filter. This makes a cartridge type dust collector ideal as a smaller, less bulky system.

What Happens Inside a Cartridge Collector?

Like most industrial dust collection systems, a cartridge collector uses a fan to move air and dust into the collector, where the filters are. We call this space the DIRTY AIR PLENUM. Air moves through the filters, while dust and particles stay on the outside. The CLEAN AIR PLENUM is the other side of the dust collector after the air has gone through the filters. The sheet of metal where clean air goes through, where the filters are sealed with gaskets, is called the TUBE SHEET.

In some cartridge-type dust collectors, the cartridge filters go in horizontally, lying on their sides. A metal yoke supports them, and gaskets seal them against the doors, between filters, and against the tube sheet. The tube sheet is vertical in the rear part of the collector.

In a vertical cartridge-type dust collector like the CMAXX, the tube sheet is above the filters. One gasket seals the filter to the tube sheet. With no gaskets between filters and no yokes to bend, vertical cartridge collectors maintain a better seal.

How Does a Cartridge Dust Collector Clean Filters?

Vertical and horizontal cartridge collector systems use the same method for cleaning cartridge filters. Pulses of compressed air travel through the filters in the opposite direction that the dirty air goes. These pulses blow dust and particles off the filters so it can fall into the collection container.

Compressed air pulse cleaning keeps cartridge filters working efficiently. Depending on the application, companies can expect several months to a year or more of filter life. Eventually, the filters have accumulated so much dust that they don’t let air flow through them anymore.

This slowed-down airflow is measured as differential pressure. This measures the change in pressure across the filters when the pulse cleaning operates. When the differential pressure gets too high, the filters have reached the end of their functional life.

Some systems operate the pulse cleaning on a timer. This may lead to filters being pulsed when they don’t need it. Since the compressed air blasts cause wear and tear on a filter over time, many systems try to minimize the number of pulses. Some systems only initiate pulse cleaning when the differential pressure reaches a certain point. As a result, filters are only pulsed clean when they need it.

What is a Cartridge Collector Used For?

Cartridge dust collection systems work for many applications. Because the filters can handle very small particles, cartridge filters work very well for applications like welding, laser, and plasma cutting fumes. They also excel in industries like grain and feed dust, fine wood dust, fiberglass, and shot blasting.

Companies increasingly choose cartridge collectors instead of baghouses when they need a smaller, more compact dust collector. In addition, maintenance on a cartridge-type dust collector is much easier. Instead of climbing inside the dirty baghouse and changing hundreds of bags, maintenance workers can pull cartridge filters out without ever getting inside the collector.

With proper venting and NFPA standard safety features, a cartridge-type dust collector can be located inside a building if necessary. Even a small baghouse will not usually fit indoors. For extreme or difficult applications, a cartridge collector can be fitted with special features to improve performance.

Cartridge Collector vs. Baghouse

If someone tells you they have THE answer to this question, don’t listen to them. Neither type of dust collector works for every application.

Cartridge collectors have the advantage of smaller size, increased filter surface area, and easy maintenance. They handle most applications, especially small particles, very efficiently.

Baghouses have an advantage in their ability to tolerate harsher applications. Sticky or abrasive materials, or dust contaminated with oil or moisture, may work better with a baghouse. Bags can also handle extreme high-temperature applications.

Best solution? Talk to a dust collection professional. Preferably, find a manufacturer that sells both types of dust collectors, so they won’t feel pressured into selling you one or the other. Ask about their experience with your application.

Cartridge dust and fume collectors continue to grow in popularity because of the benefits they offer. However, the baghouse continues to have its fans and its uses. Weigh your options before deciding.