The PowerStrip by Media Blast is a direct pressure blast cabinet that uses a pressure pot assembly to create direct pressure abrasive delivery. It also includes a pneumatic conveyor that removes the abrasive from the cabinet each time it exits the blasting nozzle. This design allows any pressure pot size to be used to extend pot run time before the pot needs to be re-filled.
About the PowerStrip
The PowerStrip was designed specifically for applications when maximum abrasive velocity and frictional heat are needed to clean or texture parts, but it’s also able to use almost any abrasive type and size including aluminum oxide, glass beads, and all forms of plastic and fine and ultra-fine abrasives. Direct pressure machines are necessary for some applications, for example, those that involve blasting into blind holes. This is because pressures exiting the hole may interfere with siphon abrasive delivery. The Power Strip also allows the nozzle to be placed directly against the part if the location has any path for exhaust – larger or smaller than the nozzle doesn’t matter – and the part then becomes the nozzle.
The standard dust collector for the PowerStrip model includes an 1100 cfm blower, and 440 square feet of MERV tested filter cartridge with a pneumatic vibrator cleaning cycle. It’s crucial that direct pressure machines include a large blower cfm volume, lots of dust storage filter surface, and a semi-automatic dust collector cleaning cycle to ensure clean and easy operation.
The PowerStrip includes a high-static blower assembly to keep the pneumatic conveyor working day after day and if you have owned a machine with a lessor blower and dust collector size you have probably already had a conveyor that stopped transferring abrasive back into the pressure pot. These factors make the PowerStrip model one of Media Blast’s fastest cleaning machines with the exception of the PowerPeen direct pressure model.
PowerStrip Benefits Include:
- Direct pressure produces a faster abrasive velocity than siphon
- 80 psi in a siphon has the same abrasive speed as 40 psi using direct pressure
- Most abrasives today (except steel shot and steel grit) have a maximum direct pressure impact velocity of 40 to 50 psi maximum.
- All direct-pressure machines concentrate the same abrasive volume in a smaller nozzle size to increase frictional heat, great for heavy or difficult coating removal.
- The design location of the outside abrasive storage hopper above the pressure pot makes for very fast pressure pot reloading
- Maximum glass bead impact velocity using a direct pressure machine is 40 psi
- Maximum plastic impact velocity using a direct pressure machine is 40 psi
- The PowerStrip model has three (3) available top designs; a square top with an insert window for maximum door size, a 17-degree window slope on the expanded top for tall parts, and 40-degree window slope for low parts and direct operator site view
All Media Blast models, including the PowerStrip machine, come equipped with many standard features and also have a wide variety of optional features that can be added to save operator-processing time. This is the complete list of PowerStrip standard features and available options.
Pro Tip: Users should be aware that the coefficient of friction greatly increases as the abrasive gets larger. Most pneumatic conveyor machines today should be used with abrasive sizes smaller than 150 mesh because this smaller size has very low wear on the pneumatic conveyor used to remove the abrasive from the cabinet.
To Sum It Up
The PowerStrip model is a direct pressure machine designed to operate with nearly all abrasive types and sizes, excluding steel shot, grit, and cut wire. The main advantage of this model is its use with fine and ultra-fine abrasives that are sensitive to moisture. The pneumatic conveyor removes and stores the abrasive outside the cabinet above the pressure pot, allowing the pneumatic conveyor to dry and aerate the abrasive which is critical with direct pressure machines. The vertical drop back into the pressure pot makes for fast pot loading and higher daily production numbers.
If you want to know if the PowerStrip is right for your application visit our Buying Guide.