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.
