TESTIMONIAL

Manox Corporation (Holyoke, MA) is a contract machine shop specializing in surgical implants, external fixations, and instruments for the medical industry. Having celebrated its 50th year in business, Marox has 65 employees running two full shifts, 7 days per week, in a modern facility built in 2000. Brian Rosenkranz, Vice President, attributes Marox's success to their decision to stay ay the cutting edge of technology, with modern CNC equipment such as palletized horizontal machining centres, five axis vertical machining centres, and up to twelve axis Swiss type screw machines. As a manufacturer of surgical implants, Marox maintains an exceptionally clean shop to demonstrate both to their customers and their employees that total attention to cleanliness is an essential element of their products. Brian Rosenkranz likes to say that his customers would not feel out of place coming from an operating room into his shop.

Marox has 9 new CNC screw machines which utilize cutting oil as the working fluid and 15 CNC millers with water-base coolant. Buildup of solids in the cutting oil in the screw machines was causing major problems in shop housekeeping, obviously a serious concern for Marox, as well as adding significant costs for machine downtime and unproductive labour. As described by Michael Consolmagno, Vice President of the Marox CNC Turning Unit, the problems caused by buildup of solids in the sumps of the screw machines are:

* Chips and fines plug the coolant pump inlet screens, causing the low flow alarm to shut down the machine.

* A high concentration of fines in the coolant loop compromises the finish on precision parts.

* When the high pressure coolant pump is utilized, solids rapidly plug the filters in the high pressure loop, requiring frequent machine shutdowns to change the filter bag.

Until recently, the only solution that Marox had to the problem of excessive solids in the oil was to shut down the machine and manually rake and shovel the solids from the sump. Mike Consolmagno estimates three hours of machine down time and labour to clean one sump, because even in the new screw machines the sumps are not readily accessible for solids raking or shoveling. In addition to the economic costs, the manual sump cleaning and chip handling unavoidably produced oily deposits that challenged the Marox scrupulous housekeeping program.

The problem of solids buildup in the sumps was solved when the salesman from Keller Products, Inc. introduced to Mike Consolmagno the portable pump/filter unit PFA-1002. The Keller PFA-1002 can clean settled and suspended solids from a sump without the need to drain the sump or shovel the solids. With the PFA-1002 Marox cleans a sump in 60 minutes or less. The cart mounted pump/filter unit is then moved to another sump and set-up to run in minutes. Marox now utilizes one PFA-1002 to service all nine CNC screw machines.

Mike Consolmagno says that treating each sump with the PFA-1002 for about one hour per week eliminates the screen plugging and parts finish problems associated with solids buildup in the sumps, and at the same time completely eliminates the messy and time consuming pump-out and shoveling operations. Now the machine tool is not taken off line for the sump cleaning. Since Marox uses two types of cutting oil, Mike particularly likes the feature that the self-priming pump on the PFA-1002 completely drains the bag filter on the separator after a sump is treated, so that the next sump can be treated without mixing oils. He also notes that, although access to the sumps on many machines is severely limited, the 8 foot lengths of both the inlet and outlet hoses and the fact that the pump on the PFA-1002 is self-priming permit quick setting up of the unit on even the most difficult sump, with little sump modification.

Marox also uses the PFA-1002 to reduce the solids load on the high pressure filter when the high pressure oil pump is operating. The PFA-1002 is set up with the inlet hose pulling from the sump at a distance from the high pressure pump inlet and the outlet hose discharging filtered oil into the vicinity of the pump inlet. With the PFA-1002 operating when the high pressure pump runs the solids load in the high pressure circuit is greatly reduced, and the time between bag changes on the high pressure filter is significantly increased.

To sum up the benefits of the Keller unit, Mike Consolmagno says: "The PFA-1002 is rugged and easy to use. It works exactly as described, with negligible operating cost, and it has eliminated several costly problems. No more pumping out and shoveling out sumps, no more problems of fines affecting parts finishes, no more short runs with the high pressure coolant filter, and with one PFA-1002 it is far easier for us to maintain our high standards of housekeeping in the entire shop."