Peristaltic pump eliminates printing machine breakdowns

The specialist print media firm also states that installing the Watson-Marlow Pumps technology on its five-colour printing machine has reduced maintenance. The machine in question offers the traditional four-colour process plus a styrene acrylic polymer coating to seal the ink. The coating dries by oxidation and hence must be kept agitated – hence the pump which keeps it flowing around the system via a trough. "The air-operated diaphragm pump was fine when it was clean and new, but it soon became quite high maintenance," explains production director Andy Povey. "The coating, which is a caustic solution, causes the seals to go [and] we were replacing them every few months. We'd had the machine six years and this issue never went away," he says. Additionally, the coating was leaking into the machine's bearings, causing them to seize and hence forcing machine downtime. And there was another problem: the pumping action thickened the coating during agitation, creating bubbles that were sucked back down the return pipe, so leading to frothing issues. Watson-Marlow engineers helped Povey specify a suitable model, recommending the 621VIX/RE close coupled peristaltic pump. "It was installed 18 months ago and we haven't touched it," he says. "Watson-Marlow explained that the tubes will need replacing at some stage. This only takes five minutes but we haven't even needed to do that yet." Also, the frothing problem has also been resolved. The peristaltic pump provides gentle, low shear fluid handling, so avoiding air entrainment. "The pump is not only saving us money; it ensures continuity of service for our customers, which is priceless," states Povey.