Hi !! ,
i wanted to know the best method of hydraulic oil filteration for our plastic injection moulding machine , i was thinking about electrostatic oil filteration , but the oil at our facility has been contaminated with some amount of water also , so could you guide me please

Oil tank Capacity of our Machine is around 1500 lts , oil type used Enklo-68.

Dear Mr- To give a fine solution I will need the following information
1. The name of the manufacturer.
2. The quauntity of oil in gallons
3. Is the machine supplied with servo or proportional valves?
4.What is the water quantity in ppm or %.
5.What is the root cause of the waterentrance? Condensation or leackage of a water cooler?

I've been involved with the injection moulding/blow moulding industry for 20 years now and the most common thing I see is filter companies pushing their products onto customers with the promise of great things.

When looking at your filtration for your moulding machines take a step back and look at the big picture.

Most filtration fitted to moulding machines these days is quite reasonable and gives good results with regards to cleanliness.

Most plastics are very abrasive and this is the most common contaminate I find in reservoirs at plastics plants. Especially if your using granulators next to your machines.
Make sure your reservoir is sealed, fit absolute rated breathers of the correct size. I do not recommend to my customers anything above 3 micron absolute. It is widely publisised the cost benefits or excluding contaminates rather than removing them.
Contain the oil leaks on your machines, if oil can get out contaminates can get in.
Read this article, http://www.machinerylubrication.com/article_detail.asp?articleid=490&relatedbookgroup=Hydraulics. there is limited information about on moulding machine filtration/contamination control so this is a good read.

I am more than happy to discuss requirements for particular machines if you like, just email me. admin@lubemate.com.au

The name of the oil manufacturer is Hindustan Petroleum , the grade is Enklo-68, the approximate quanity of oil in gallons is 350 gallons, water and other solid contaminants had entered the oil tank due to negligence of working staff , as they had kept one of the entrances open , they were doing maintanance of a particular valve and they forgot to close the lid , and also there were some leakages from the machine and the workers used to collect the oil and pour the same oil into the tank again , also the water cooling lines run behind the machine and spillage occurs when mould is changed and some water may have entered the oil tank. thanx for your reply, Dhaval - V.P.Plastics , vpplast@gmail.com

the website referred by you looks very informative, thanks for your help , i will go thru the website

dhaval

Mr steffens the water quantity in the oil is greater than 500 ppm, my staff was saying that oil colour has also changed to something like dark brown or black.

Mr steffens our machine is fitted with proportional valves.

Dear mr. Dhaval
We offer Professional Services for Hydraulic Oil Codition Monitoring with laser Particle Counter and Cleaning it with Off Line Filtration System up to international standards like NAS/ ISO. We offer our services at your door steps. Pumping capacity is 3000 Ltrs/hr and entire system is automatic so there is no chance of any error.

Please let me knowyour E Mail ID to enable me to send our slide show.

With best regards.

V.S.Dave
For Hymat Services
F-9, 'KIRIT',
Evershine Nagar,
Malad ( W )
Mumbai - 400064
Telefax : 0091-22-28814802
Mobile : 09324414802

Dear Mr Dave,
My email id is vpplast@gmail.com is your system affected by water in the oil tank, bcoz water has ingressed into water tank [ more than 500 ppm ] bcoz i heard electrostatic oil cleaning machines cant handle water more than 500 ppm, can u recommend a good hydraulic oil cleaning solution

regards

Dhaval Shah

Some of the largest injection moulding companies use CC Jensen filtration systems to remove varnish, fine particulate and water. Check out how well these CJC systems work with this link:

Injection moulder filtration

Thanks
Harv

About filtration

For your application I advise not to use an electrostatic oilcleaner because of presence of water.It will be worse investment. An off-line or bypass filtration will be the best solution.
The advantages are:
1. An clean oil (NAS 6-7)- permanently
2. Removing of oxidationproducts and water.

thank u mr steffens for ur reply, can u throw some more light on offline and bypass filtration, i was wondering if you could give a brief explanation so that i could understand the pro`s and con`s of the methods mentioned by you, i also got to know abt mechanical filtration, in which oil is pumped at high speed and filtered using a 3 micron filter, and oil can be filtered to nas 6 level pretty fast, the machine can filter 100 lts of oil to nas6 in 1 hr.. , my email id is vpplast@gmail.com thanks. dhaval

Shah,

From the posts, water ingress seems to be a temporary aberration and you will have dealt with it by now. At 500 ppm, dehydration may be simple option. In fact, Dave is based at Mumbai and should be able to offer you suitable services.

My concern is the comment

"oil colour... changed is changed to dark brown or black."

In my experience the oil may be getting oxidised probably a result of the phenomena called "Dieselling." A typical burnt oil smell will vouch to the above.

It may be a good idea to shift to high VI oil (120 to 150 VI), as it will tolerate the high temperature/pressure operatations normally found in Plastic Injection Mouldinng machines, better than the (90 to 100 VI Enklo series)other oils. Alternatively Hydraulic oils produced from Group II or Hydrocracked base stocks would be a good deal. Enklo HLP 68 or above should be a good alternative. In India, Castrol, Shell and Idemetsu have products that can overcome the dieselling problems.

M Hussam Adeni
hussam_adeni@yahoo.com

If you are experiencing dieseling it will be best to eliminate the root cause and not treat the symptom. Maytag

i had a word with the machine manufacturer and he advised me against using any other grade other than enklo 68 , he said that using higher viscosity oil would harm the injection pump catridge, and said my machine warranty would become void if i used anything different with ref to the recommended oil type.
we have temporarily cleaned the oil tank, oil filter, we used electrostatic oil cleaner and cleaned the oil , but still i am not 100 % satisified. do you think if the oil tank is completely sealed , the oil can degrade because it is under constant pressure and subjected to higher tempratures like 50 deg celcius..

mr adeni when u say castrol , shell , idemetsu have products to overcome dieselling problem , u mean they sell additives or there oils have such additives in them that can overcome such problems, i am using hindustan petroloeum oil as it is freely avialable and this make is widely used in my industry , in my daman plant we use oil from Gulf oil .

the machine in which we are facing hydraulic oil problems , we are cleaning the oil filter every 2 days , and once a month we take the filter out of the machine and clean it throughly using kerosene. there is no sludge currently in the machine, when we poured the oil first time in the machine there were no contaminants, we have cleaned the oil tank using sponge and removed all the oil which was highly contaminated , the colour of oil in that machine is not similar to the oil colour in our other similar machines, it is like black or dark brown, after electrostatic filtration we were able to reduce the contaminants to a fair degree and the oil colour has changed a bit i guess due to reduced contaminants , contaminants were basically plastic granules,sludge.

Dhaval,

Yes OEM's insists only recommended oils are used for availing warranty. Unfortunately, they are not uptodate with the latest technologies or changes. Dieselling is one such example.

You have no choice but to continue with existing arrangement till expire of warranty.

In my next post I will give details of contacts in Castrol, Shell and Idimetsu whom you can contact for HVI and GRp II oils required to overcome dieselling problems.

M Hussam Adeni

quote:

Originally posted by Dhaval Shah:
the machine in which we are facing hydraulic oil problems , we are cleaning the oil filter every 2 days , and once a month we take the filter out of the machine and clean it throughly using kerosene. there is no sludge currently in the machine, when we poured the oil first time in the machine there were no contaminants, we have cleaned the oil tank using sponge and removed all the oil which was highly contaminated , the colour of oil in that machine is not similar to the oil colour in our other similar machines, it is like black or dark brown, after electrostatic filtration we were able to reduce the contaminants to a fair degree and the oil colour has changed a bit i guess due to reduced contaminants , contaminants were basically plastic granules,sludge.

Dear Mr. Dhaval

As far as my experience goes, please check the oil temprature. Do you clean your cooler along with Oil ? What type of Oil cooler you have ? Do you use same make and type of the oil in all your machines or diffeant makes and type of oil ? Do face no problem in the same type / size and make of the machine with the same grade / make of the oil ?

In that case your problem is machine specific and not oil specific. You need to evalute thoroughly the operating conditions of the machine concerned.

Cleaning the Oil and Filter every 2 days is not bad but ideally it is not required if the rate of contamination ingress is tightly controlled.
If this is advance technology based machine, Oil filtration - once in 4 - 6 months should be good enough.

Fresh Oil is also not technically clean for the some of the typical components like proportional / servo valves / Variable Volume axial piston pumps.

Most of the time fresh oil cleaness level varies from NAS - 10 to NAS 12. Even if you buy Super clean oil of NAS - 6 level by paying premium it is of no use if you dont take care while transfering it to reservoier. Most advisabble thing is to clean the oil tank thoroughly, feel the tank with fresh standard oil, and filter the oil up to required NAS level and seal the tank. and forget it for next 6 months. DOnt disturb the system unless it is seriously affecting the preformance of the machine . production / productive.

V.S.Dave