When you begin to do your research on industrial parts washers, you’ll have questions. You’ll wonder what kind of parts washer would be best to use for your specific need. Or whether you can purchase one already made or should have one custom designed. You’ll have to calculate how much space the parts washer will take up on your shop floor and how many employees it will take to operate it.
Another question you should ask, particularly when it comes to aqueous parts washers is: How often will the aqueous cleaning product need to be replaced? If you’re a business owner in the market for a parts cleaner, how do you know the answer to this question?
How Often Should Your Change Your Aqueous Cleaning Product?
While aqueous parts washers use water-based solutions to clean instead of petroleum-based solvents, those solutions require cleaning formulations to do their work (in addition to heat, agitation, and soap action). Those cleaners have a limited lifespan. Even when a parts washer is combined with a washer washer, the cleaners do not last forever; they degrade. A number of factors influence how long they will do their job effectively. These are:
- The amount of dirt, grease, or swarf the cleaner has to remove – This would include how dirty the individual parts are and how many parts there are to clean. Is the “dirt” just dirt or is it debris or swarf? What is the overall workload? If the parts are very dirty, the cleaner will lose its effectiveness sooner and have to be replaced.
- How big the parts washer’s sump is – The size of the sump determines how much soil in solution the parts washer will be able to accommodate before the solution no longer works to clean. The smaller the sump, the sooner the cleaner will need to be replaced.
Because the soil composition varies based on the parts themselves and how they are used, it’s difficult to estimate how long a cleaner will last. It’s a good question to ask of your parts washer manufacturer, however. The engineer who designs the parts washer will have an idea.
After you have installed your parts washer and begin to use it, you can monitor how clean your parts are bath after bath and then determine when the cleanliness levels dip below specification. After observing this process several times, you’ll have a better idea of how often you will have to replace the cleaning product for your parts washer to remain effective.
If you are looking at parts washers and would like to know how a specifically designed washer can and would work to clean your parts better and more efficiently, contact us at AEC Systems. We would love to talk to you about your needs and how we can design a system to meet them.