The Challenge
During this century, an estimated one billion diesel engines have been manufactured, and the majority are still on the road. These engines fuel the flow of commerce, for they are the common denominator in trains, buses, trucks, generators, compressors, military vehicles, mining equipment, tractors, farming machinery and heavy-duty equipment, and co-generation plants, to name a few.
One of the most critical components common to all these applications is the need for an air filter to protect the engine from dirt and debris. When an air filter becomes saturated with dirt it must be removed, and until recently, the only options available for replacing the dirty filter were purchasing a new air filter or wet washing the old one. The downside with buying new air filters is the expense involved and subjecting the engine to dirt particulates until the pre-coat is formed on the new air filter. For a sizeable fleet operation, replacing air filters becomes a significant and irritating cost, especially in our current stagnant economy.
Wet washing presents another set of problems. First of all, the manufacturers of air filters don’t recommend the process, which damages the filter, and could damage the engine as well. Further, wet washing is not the most effective process for cleaning your air filter and poses a greater risk than reward! Research of the Donaldson Company in Minneapolis concludes that 30 percent of an air filter’s service life can be lost each time it’s washed. This, along with the damaging effects of the washing process, explains why filter manufacturers do not warranty their filters after they have been wet washed.
The challenge was presented: How to provide a cost-effective, yet efficient option for recycling the air filter, while serving our renewed commitment to the environment and to sensible solid waste management practices.
Sonic Dry Clean met the challenge head-on. Three years of painstaking research, design, and testing resulted in a revolutionary cleaning process and system that cleans air filters automatically by using computer-controlled sequences of compressed air, vibration and vacuum: A Better Way Now with over 1,000 SDC System in use worldwide, SDC literally leaves the competition in the dust!
A Revolutionary Process
How does Sonic Dry Clean work?
First, its specially designed cleaning machine uses computerized sequences of vibration to sonically loosen heavily encrusted particulates. In this part of the process, the air filter is rotated counterclockwise and the vibration is created by manipulating airflow. This air vibration vacuums the particulates out of the air filter. The airflow required can easily be provided by the customer’s own compressed air source.
The entire process is designed to be done by a single operator, and the average cleaning time for an air filter is less than five minutes.
The SDC user gets a more efficient air filter, effectively reduces pollution, and is less expensive than buying a new one, all in less than five minutes.
Now that’s efficiency!
No wonder the report issued by California Environmental Engineering said that, “It is evident that [the Sonic Dry Clean] process will extend the life of air filters while at the same time lower maintenance costs.”
Scientists Support not only the California Environmental Engineering testing on the Sonic Dry Clean System and cleaning process but also testing conducted in 1993, by the nationally known, highly respected Southwest Research Institute. The SRI conducted efficiency and dust capacity tests on one new and three dry cleaned air filter elements from Sonic Dry Clean.
The testing was conducted in accordance with the current Air Cleaner Test Code, using the most reliable housing and radial seal testing equipment. Incredibly, the three dry cleaned filters all achieved higher initial and cumulative efficiency levels than the new filter.
