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Top Tips to Buy a High Intensity Mixer – June 16, 2017
If you are looking for a mixer to execute heavy duty mixing on large scale on a daily basis, then you need to have a machine which is reliable and efficient. This kind of mixer operates at high speed and can reach up to 40 meters per second.
Here are the top tips you must keep in mind to buy a High Intensity Mixers
Motor
Good quality motor is essential for a reliable mixer. Analyze the type of mixing you need to do, and as per the nature of the product decide the parameters and capacity of the motor. Make sure the motor is supplied with the proper bearings and comes with latest technology to deliver high performance without any technical glitches. Direct Drive mixers require the proper RPM to give 40M/S tip speed.
Housing and Mixer Tools, Deflector
Ensure that the housing of the bearings is built from a highly tensile material. Also, ensure that the design facilitates easy removal of parts and replacing of bearings.
Select a mixer that has tools and a deflector that are made from corrosive resistant material and designed to properly agitate the material being mixed. Ensure that the tools have wear resistant coating to avoid damage to the edges.
Lid and Discharge Opening
High intensity mixers tend to have leak resistant lids and discharge chutes. Making sure that both the lid and discharge chute are supplied to be easily cleaned and maintained is important in minimizing downtime.
High Intensity Mixers – February 21, 2017
Reliance High Intensity Mixers can be supplied to suit many design parameters. Units can be jacketed to heat or cool the bowl. They can be supplied in a Efficiency or Standard Design based on the budget. Smaller High Intensity Mixers can be supplied with the motor inverted underneath the bowl for space savings or in the conventional belt-driven design. Various tool designs can be supplied to cater to the chosen process.
Horizontal Mixers and Cooler Sealing – December 27, 2016
Horizontal Mixers and Coolers have (3) potential leak points. The lid, the discharge plug, and the end plates where the shaft enters the vessel.
The lid can be sealed with many different styles of Gasket. Reliance adds a groove in the Mixer/Cooler flange for a dome shaped gasket to be pressed into. The gasket is then compressed down by the force of the lid when it is closed. Clamps opposite of the hinge points tighten the lid down preventing material from leaking. Inflatable gaskets and custom gaskets can be made to reduce leaks in existing units.
The discharge plug typically has a Seal Ring that sits in a grove that is on the plug. The seal ring is compressed against the body of the Mixer/Cooler with it is in the closed position and remains compressed by upward forced maintained by the Air Cylinder.
The end plates can be sealed with different sealing mechanisms. Reliance uses a Rotary Shaft Seal with an elastomer boot, ptfe rotor cups, stator plates, and a ptfe bushing to prevent material leakage. As opposed to shaft seals and packing gland seals, the Rotary Shaft Seals provide longer life and requires less upkeep.
Vessel Thickness and Life of Mixer – September 5, 2016
The usable life of a Mixer or Cooler varies on the material being processed, the speed at which the material is moving, and the construction of the Mixer. The life of the Mixing Vessel is typically dependent on the thickness of the material it is made out of. The Vessel can be coated with wear protective material but if a foreign object such as a nut or bolt gouge the coating then the base material is exposed and cracks propagate along the coating and severely reduce the effectiveness of the coating. Thicker material for a Cooler and Mixer is the most effective way to ensure long life. Thicker Material that is coated further elongates the lifespan of the vessel.
Mixing of Pigments and Colorants – August 29, 2016
The processing of materials with various pigments and colorants such as toners, color concentrates, and powder coatings can be tricky. Organic pigments can cause smearing within the mixing chamber and tools. Using a VFD to alter the speed of the motor and blades allows the mixer to run in a way that can give a Homogeneous Mixture while reducing the smearing effects. High Intensity Mixers can be programmed by the PLC to run at a optimal setting to reduce spearing. Container Mixers can be designed to have the bottom blade run at a lower speed to reduce the same effect. The top blade can run at a high speed insuring proper material distribution.
PVC Blending Systems – August 22, 2016
The continuous rise in labor costs and product consistency has spurred the requirement for automation in the manufacturing process. Whether a plant is manufacturing pipe, conduit, siding, or compound, the need for automated weighing, conveying, and processing is a must. Raw Ingredients brought in by railcar or truck must be unloaded and properly tallied for inventory. End product standards are reliant on proper weighing of recipe ingredients in scale hoppers prior to the mixing sequence. Once the product is properly processed it is typically taken to Storage Silos or directly to down stream equipment for further processing.
Powder Coating Container Mixers – August 15, 2016
The Container Mixer concept was developed to allow processes that require many color changes the capability to use multiple containers to reduce clean-up time while giving the product a transport vessel to take mixed material to the extruder station. The evolution of the container mixer has allowed modern units to be supplied with many advantages to its predecessors. Today’s units are supplied with motorized screw jacks to lift & clamp the container to the mixing head. In addition they are supplied with control systems that allow for vfd’s and parameter storage that allows for the mixer to run at various speeds, times, and conditions during the mixing cycle. The Container Mixer Tooling can be specially designed to mix products such as powder coatings, color concentrates, and toners.
Engineered High Intensity Mixer Tool Designs – August 8, 2016
Reliance’s High Intensity Mixer design is based on many engineering principals coming together to give the proper desired end product. One of the most critical components to the unit is the design and functionality of the High Intensity Mixer Tools. The standard tools give flexibility in mixing but when low shear, faster/slower temperature rise, or specialty processing procedures come into play, engineered tools become a necessity that Reliance Mixers can help fulfill. ‘S’ Shape, Ring, Multi-pronged, and many other tooling designs can be fabricated and tested in Reliance’s labs to ensure that the proper end product is achieved.
Effective PVC Cooling Mixer Design – August 1, 2016
The efficient Cooling of PVC is done in a Cooling Mixer with a High Pressure Rated jacket that is running sufficient chilled water. Factors such as proper tooling and RPM of the Mixing Shaft also play a critical role in the Cooling of materials so that they are ready for conveying or processing. Flow bars internally within the Vessels Jacket must be laid out properly and the flow rate of the chilled water must be high enough to ensure proper heat transfer. Both the lid and the main vessel is jacketed in a Horizontal Cooler. The entirety of the bowl is jacketed in a Vertical Cooler. The Vertical Cooler can be supplied with a Cooling Cone inside the bowl to add additional surface area to cool the product.
High Intensity Lab Mixers – July 25, 2016
Reliance’s (VFM) High Intensity Lab Mixers are used for experimental testing of various mixing applications. The lab units are designed to fit in confined areas and give the operator easy access to clean the mixer and maintain the unit to minimize cross-contamination. The lab High Intensity Mixers can be supplied with various tool designs. They can be supplied with manual or automatic controls. Automatic Controls supplied with a PLC, Drive, and Panelview can be extremely beneficial in supplying data that can be analyzed by a companies product development team. Historical data and trends can be compared and used to develop production parameters.
Mixing Parameters for PVC Mixing – July 18, 2016
Reliance’s (VFM) High Intensity Mixer is used in the processing of PVC. The speed at which the motor runs should be based on the amp draw of the mixer motor and the step the sequence is in. In order to make a batch in the fastest possible time, the Mixer Controls should be self-optimizing. The motor should stay as close to the full load amps as possible, other than when material is being added or when the material is being discharged. When Resin is being charged into the High Intensity Mixer (Heat Mixer), the Motor is typically running lower than 1800 RPM. However, when Resin has been fully charged the Motor can kick to High Speed. If the amps start to reach the full load rating, the Logic of the Mixer can reduce the RPM by 50. After 5 seconds if the amp draw is still higher then the set point, the RPM can be reduced by another 50 RPM. This can be done until the ideal setting is found. The Mixer Controls can populate the parameters fields for the next batch once they are found in the previous batch.
