Abrasive Blasting 101
Thanks to these vacuum blower tips, buying a vacuum blower operated dust collector doesn’t have to be another “you get what you pay for” life lesson. Instead of assuming more horsepower and cfm are always better, an educated buyer understands the engineering behind the four common classes of blowers. If you need a quick refresher on how blowers work, read this post before you go on.
Media Blast Product Spotlights
Customers ask us far too often why they should buy a vacuum dust collector from us rather than a shop vacuum from their local hardware store. Even though they aren’t drastically different in price, Media Blast’s vacuum dust collectors make a huge difference in machine function and how clean your workspace is when operating a smaller machine for smaller hand held parts.
Updated January 2022: Almost all problems with any abrasive blasting dust collector attached to an existing blasting cabinet are related to one of a few conditions being listed below. Most people buy these machines based on budget and not the machine’s application. This is a mistake. First, an abrasive blasting cabinet’s use can, and probably will, change over time due to an increase in production or simply finding more uses for the machine. Second, if…
Most abrasive cabinet upkeep is related to the dust collector maintenance. The dust collector, a critical component of the machine, stores the dust and spent abrasive as well as the material being removed from the part. Purchasing a dust collector that cannot scale with the production model is one of the biggest pain points customers express.
Many applications today need an advanced design dust collector to move the collected dust off the filter and/or to be able to store the dust created by a large size gun(s) in a cost effective blasting speed. These circumstances often require a dust collector that is larger than the blasting cabinet itself, creating a need for freestanding Reverse Pulse Dust Collector.
Maintenance Tips
We try to give general guidelines about when to clean a blasting cabinet dust collector in each machine’s user manual. Our official recommendation for any Media Blast® Industrial model is two, (2), to three, (3), minute cleaning cycles every two, (2), hours of machine operation. But the reality is that the cleaning and maintenance frequency of blast cabinet dust collectors is based on several variables. It’s the responsibility of the user to adapt our recommendation…
A Reverse Pulse Cartridge Dust Collector is a type of air filtration system that utilizes a series of cylindrical cartridges to capture and remove dust and other airborne particles from an industrial or commercial environment. This free-standing dust collector is used for extended blasting operations, multiple guns, or multiple machine operation and or multiple daily shifts. Under these conditions, the reduced maintenance and increased daily operation provided by these dust collectors result in a big…
Many people wrongly assume that quality dust collectors are only critical for industrial sandblasting equipment. This is just plain incorrect. Regardless of how many parts you are processing, a high-quality dust collector makes a world of difference when operating a sandblasting cabinet.
Dust collector maintenance variables play a large role in how often you need to service your machine. Unfortunately, ongoing and preventative maintenance for blasting cabinet dust collectors is not a black and white issue. A fixed maintenance schedule won’t work for every machine and every application, but knowing how these ten variables affect dust collector maintenance can help you establish a maintenance schedule that works for your needs.
Daily Duty Cycle (DDC) is the amount of time a blasting cabinet can operate before it needs to be serviced. We measure DDC using the gun cfm, the dust collector blower, and the filter storage area. Consider this, a 5% DDC typically translates to less than 30 minutes of total operation in a single 8-hour period. If your application requires more than 30 minutes of machine operation you may need to size-up your dust collector. And…
