Efficient vacuuming for high-speed milling of plastics

Multiple, fully-automated “high speed cutting” (HSC) milling systems cut the shapes of the boots stored in the controller from the plastic materials. A large quantity of chips is removed for each individual product, and these chips need to be removed from the process. The company also wanted to ensure efficient and clean collection of these plastic chips.

There is a DS 1400 Ruwac vacuum cleaner installed on each milling system with a dust class L filter in an Ex protected design (zone 22). There is a cyclone separator upstream of each of the vacuum cleaners. This combination is highly effective: The relatively heavy plastic milling chips are collected almost 100% in the cyclone separator, so that the pocket filters in the vacuum cleaners only see minimal use, enjoying very long service lives as a result.

Chips are collected on the bottom of the cyclone during every milling process. Once the extraction system is turned off, a flap opens automatically and the chips fall into a mesh collection box. The mesh box can easily be exchanged via pallet jack when the milling system processes another kind of plastic. This allows TecSupport to separate the chips for collection and sell them as recycled materials.