Powder coating residues vacuumed easily and cleanly

Customer:	Claas
Extracted material:	Powder coating
Industry:	Surface technology
Vacuum cleaner:	Customer-specific vacuum cleaner with big bags

Class is Europe's market leader in Mähdreschern, one of the world’s best agricultural machinery manufacturers, and is considered one of Germany's top ten mechanical engineering companies. The owner-operated company, founded in 1913, generated over 75% of its revenues outside of its home market.

Problem

During powder coating of components at the main plant in Harsewinkel (mostly in the brand colour of seedling green), there was is no way to prevent powder residues from collecting in the trays on the coating systems or entering the surrounding areas. Managers at the production surface centre were looking for a solution to efficiently collect these residues as completely as possible, and held meetings with a variety of system manufacturers. Ultimately, the solution Ruwac presented won them over, and was implemented in practice.

Solution

Ruwac constructed a customer-specific, two-stage vacuum system (pre-separator and 2.6 m2 pocket filter) based on the DS 1220 standard model. The differences from the model are the trolley frame, the elevated position of the filter unit and the capacity of the collection container. The system uses the big bags in which the powder is delivered, an efficient reuse of materials. They hold up to 400 kg of powder residue, rest on pallets on the trolley frame, and can easily be exchanged using a pallet truck. Ruwac needed to consider the specified passage dimensions and the company's other requirements when adapting the base unit. Because the paint powder is explosive, the system is designed to conform with DustEx zone 22.