Investment Protection - Collision Repair Magazine

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Volume 6

Issue 1

Investment Protection

Written by Matt Gibson

Saturday, 17 March 2007

Maximizing productivity doesn’t have to be expensive. The most expensive item in your facility is almost certainly your spray booth. It can be frustrating to realize that the most expensive and complicated piece of machinery in your shop can be brought down by a failure of its least expensive part.
Filter maintenance is often overlooked. It shouldn’t be. For the relatively low cost of replacing filters regularly you can not only protect a valuable investment, but maximize productivity.
With the transition to low VOC paint many shops are researching new equipment and procedures to maintain or increase production.
While the equipment/procedures are a very important part of preparing your business for this transition, we also want to remind you that filters are key components in making all refinishing equipment work at its most optimal efficiency.
It doesn’t matter if the booth is down draft or cross draft, air flow is key and clean air flow is optimum.
Today’s ceiling or door diffusion filters are designed to stop contaminates down to 10 microns in size and in the case of some filter media down to one micron. Considering that the diameter of a single hair on your head is a whopping 40 microns, that’s pretty small.
Dan Glendon is the General Manager of Viledon Fruedenberg Canada. He points out that there are other differences between filters than simply how small a particle they stop.
“The biggest difference between filter media is if it has a binder in it or not,” says Dan. “If your filter yellows with heat it has a binder and will shorten the life of the filter and may even offload contaminate caused by media drying and breaking. Viledon thermally bonds its fiber to the scrim so no yellowing and no shortening of filter life occurs.”
Often it is thought that a dirty filter is a better filter but this is not the case in a spray booth that constantly has vibration from doors opening and closing and the burner turned on and off. Dan recommends that you change your supply/intake air filters once every six months, depending on the volume of traffic your booth sees.
“Regularly changed filters will allow for a cleaner spray environment, which will assist in decreasing the opportunity for spray imperfections that are harder to mask with waterborne than solvent based coatings,” adds Dan.

optimal pressure
No matter what type of coating is being used, regularly changed filters will allow for your paint booth to run with the optimal air flow pressure.
Making sure that filters are changed on a regular basis will also assist in keeping the running costs on your refinishing equipment in line, especially on equipment that is monitored by variable frequency drives.
Clean filters simply do not put as much of a strain on the mechanical workings of the air make up system as dirty ones do.
Therefore, clean filters assisting in prolonging the life of your equipments components and the equipment itself. It will also help optimize your energy costs.
All the above mentioned points are not only true for future waterborne paints but also for here and now. Filters assist in making your spray area highly productive now and in the future.

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