How the GS Series Disk Skimmer saves the day; The Virginia Panel Story

The Problem

Cary Campbell at Virginia Panel has been trying to keep his coolant perfectly free of tramp oils for the past ten years. His only criteria? Whatever he chose had to be effective, and affordable.

His solution?

A new invention that uses micro-coalescing technology. Cary was using sulfur based coolant in all the machines in his plant. Particularly in his Mitsui Seiki VR5A. In 1993, he had to dispose of 19 barrels. At a cost of $65 each, this came to $1,235 for 93. This is about $1.20 per gallon. These barrels contained coolant and oil. Therefore an additional cost was incurred to replace the lost coolant.

So far for '94, Cary has disposed of 13 barrels. One reason for this decrease is that Cary is switching his machines over to Blaser coolants. His machine was one of the first to switch. The new coolant helped him cut better.

The Beginning

Even more advantageous, it also rejected the oils much better than the old. So the quantity of oils in the machine were now more evident.

Cary also knew that the new coolants were more nutritious for anaerobic bacteria, so that something about the tramp oils had to be done. If he didn't remove the oils, then his more expensive coolant would go bad just as the other coolant had.

At first, Cary used three different types of belt skimmers, and they didn't do the job. Then he got a conventional disk skimmer. This did the job, but this unit also pulled out much of the coolant, so that the waste drum was filling up with a mix of coolant and oils. The unit had to be on a timer, and the container that Cary was using to collect the oils had to be watched every day to make sure that it would not overflow.

Removal

In addition, Cary had to take the full container to the barrel and empty it every day.

This required only a few minutes a day, but over the course of a year, a few minutes a day adds up to a full day of lost work!

At this point, Cary began to use a new product that not only skimmed his tramp oils out of the tank, but also cleaned and returned the coolant to his sump.

This was the new type of disk skimmer introduced by Zebra Skimmers in Cleveland, Ohio. The skimmer uses patent pending micro-coalescer technology to separate the coolant from the oils, to clean the coolant, and to remove the oils from the tank.

In addition, the units could be easily customized to fit in a special area, and it had unbreakable disks. As a bonus, Cary was able to use components of his old disk skimmer on the new unit, saving even more money.

Problem Solved

But the biggest benefit of all was that there was no coolant removed by the filtration system because of the micro-coalescer. By leaving the skimmer on almost continuously, and using a small fan to move the oil towards the skimmer, he was able to keep his coolant pristine.

Since August of 94, he has removed about 20 gallons of oil from the machine. At this rate, it will take about a year to fill a waste barrel.

What was once costing him over $1,000 a year is now less than a hundred! By switching his unit to a Zebra GS unit, Cary has saved himself a lot of time, and money.

Even better, the sump stays cleaner because he can have the skimmer on all the time. Waste disposal cost is minimized because the waste barrel contains only waste oils; so the cost of hauling it is also much less.

Now Cary doesn't have to empty the can every day, only once a week, so that much time is saved as well. It was like gaining an extra day of production! And since the coolant is cleaned and returned to the sump, it lasts longer, resulting in fewer coolant changes.

Useful Links and Information about Coolant Maintenance