Fine Mesh Powder Screening

The Nitty Gritty of 3D Printing & Powder Sieving

The Nitty Gritty of 3D Printing & Powder Sieving

By Jeff Hochadel

Jul 06

Here at HK Technologies, we have been sieving powder metal for quite some time. Our Ultrasonic Sieving Systems allow for sieving very fine atomized powders – down to 20 micron on conventional wire mesh and in some cases finer –using electroformed material provided by PrecisionForm, Inc. As the 3D printing industry has exploded, so has the need for finer powders. While I am no expert in the field of 3D printing, I have been involved in several areas requiring finer and finer mesh sieving.

Many of the 3D printing manufacturers install a very simple inline vibratory screener system in the powder feed system. These simple screeners typically sieve the powder through a 74 micron or 200 mesh screen. This ensures that no large foreign objects are being fed into the powder part building process. Many times the end-user needs finer powder to create the intricate parts they are producing. This powder is typically said to be +20 -25 micron powder. We are also told this powder is classified through an air classification process. The process, while quick and relatively easy, leaves a powder that is not always what it is claimed to be. When asked to check the accuracy of the particle size, we find there is almost always a significant amount, 10% or more, of finer material than claimed. Read More…

Jeff Hochadel

Jeff Hochadel has over 25 years of experience building and selling vibratory screening equipment. Jeff is responsible for handling fine mesh screening applications for The Cleveland Vibrator Company. His expertise is utilizing our Ultrasonic Deblinding System to solve difficult screening problems. When Jeff is not visiting customers promoting our products you can most likely find him fly fishing.

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Saving Green While You Screen

By Jeff Hochadel

Jun 08

We know it’s a big deal when it comes to talking about “sticker price”, especially when it deals with expensive pieces of equipment, or rather process investments that will provide efficiency and give you the best final product possible. Customized pieces of equipment tend to fall under the larger price tags, but don’t be fooled, there are ways to provide the best equipment possible while keeping it in a reasonable price range. Cleveland Vibrator and HK Technologies take every unique application and gives you a solution to best fit your process, and sometimes that solution much simpler than what you thought it was going to be…

Although we have a complete line of screening equipment from small lab models in 3”, 8” and 12” diameters all the way up to 60” diameter screeners we still receive numerous calls from customers looking for customized screeners built around a piece of equipment or a specific process. While many of these applications can be challenging and downright difficult, our shop manager finds them all interesting and challenging. One of the more popular requests is what we call drum sifters or drum screeners. The screeners are simple screeners designed to fit on top of an existing container or a manway on a piece of process equipment. Typically, the customer is not looking to spend a lot of money and is just interested in a way to remove Read More…

Jeff Hochadel

Jeff Hochadel has over 25 years of experience building and selling vibratory screening equipment. Jeff is responsible for handling fine mesh screening applications for The Cleveland Vibrator Company. His expertise is utilizing our Ultrasonic Deblinding System to solve difficult screening problems. When Jeff is not visiting customers promoting our products you can most likely find him fly fishing.

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The Importance of Proper Installation of Industrial Vibrators

By Mike Stratis

Apr 13

“If you don’t have the time to do it right, when will you have the time to do it again?”
– John Wooden, former UCLA Men’s Basketball Coach and Presidential Medal of Freedom award winner.

We have a few frequently asked questions regarding bin vibrators, many of which revolve around how to install the unit. Here is the down and dirty:

How To Improve Ceramic Slurry Screening With Ultrasonics Deblinding System

By Jeff Hochadel

Mar 31

Liquid ceramic glaze or clay slurry materials are used in a variety of products and applications ranging from decorative and protective glazes to tile glaze or electrical porcelains. Typically this material starts with either Koalin clays or ceramic powders mixed with water or other liquids to form a slurry. Depending on the application this slurry will need to be screened to remove any agglomerates (powders that did not get dispersed during the mixing process). This is a very important step because, in many applications, this slurry or slip will eventually be applied to an exterior surface either as a decorative or possibly a protective coating. In either case, the coating needs to be free of any oversize agglomerates or debris allowing for an attractive smooth finish free of any pits or blemishes. The finer the screen or sieve used, the better or smoother the finish.

Depending on the application, screening can range from simply pouring the slip or slurry through a filter bag with a relatively coarse mesh to using vibratory screeners with finer mesh sizes – down to 120 mesh or maybe finer. This is where the difficulties begin. Read More…

Jeff Hochadel

Jeff Hochadel has over 25 years of experience building and selling vibratory screening equipment. Jeff is responsible for handling fine mesh screening applications for The Cleveland Vibrator Company. His expertise is utilizing our Ultrasonic Deblinding System to solve difficult screening problems. When Jeff is not visiting customers promoting our products you can most likely find him fly fishing.

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Grain Bin Safety Week: How Rescue Tubes and Proper Training Will Save Lives

Grain Bin Safety Week: How Rescue Tubes and Proper Training Will Save Lives

By CVC Team

Feb 20

Did you know that the pressure of engulfing grain is so powerful, that it takes more than 1,500 pounds of force to free a body submerged under less than two feet of grain?

I must admit that although Cleveland Vibrator has supplied Industrial Vibrators and Equipment to the grain and feed industry for many decades, I was not aware until I took the Asmark Safety Course how many folks are trapped, injured or killed inside grain silos and feed mills. A lot of the grain safety training applies to just about all industries and mirrors the manufacturing industry, which I have worked in and been associated for over 45 years. Two major things I picked up from this training were:

Tag out and lock out is huge anytime you need to work on a piece of equipment, or when you are in an area that normally has running equipment.
Checking your tools to make sure they are in good working order which includes inspection of the guards and making sure you have no frayed electrical cords. Generally, this is just good work ethics in any work environment. Read More…

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Quit Throwing Away Money! Check Screening Powder Coating Solutions That Saves You Cash.

Quit Throwing Away Money! Check Screening Powder Coating Solutions That Saves You Cash.

By Jeff Hochadel

Feb 16

Powder coaters know the importance of utilizing a powder coating that is free from any contaminants or oversize particles. This would include the end-user and the powder coating manufacturer. Typical powder coating applications can leave up to 20% of the original powder either to be recycled or swept up and thrown out in the trash. Depending on the application this can be like throwing money out with the garbage.

Over the years we have built numerous vibratory check screeners for the powder coating end user who is interested in reclaiming the excess powder left over from a product run. Typically powder coatings are sieved in the 80-120 mesh range by the manufacturer. This mesh range is dependent on the type of powder and application where the powder is applied. When a customer approaches me with an application involving powder coating reclaim, I first inquire about his application. Is the finish a high-quality finish or coating possibly for a protective value? Secondly, is this a continuous or batch operation? This helps in determining the proper mesh size. High-quality finishes require a finer mesh size while other finishes may require a coarser screen. Both will remove the contaminants inquiries range from reclaiming powder swept up from the bottom of paint booths, while also protecting applicator spray guns from blockage. Read More…

Jeff Hochadel

Jeff Hochadel has over 25 years of experience building and selling vibratory screening equipment. Jeff is responsible for handling fine mesh screening applications for The Cleveland Vibrator Company. His expertise is utilizing our Ultrasonic Deblinding System to solve difficult screening problems. When Jeff is not visiting customers promoting our products you can most likely find him fly fishing.

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The Importance of Product Testing for Fine Mesh Screening

The Importance of Product Testing for Fine Mesh Screening

By Jeff Hochadel

Dec 08

Many times a potential customer will call our office or email asking for a quote and delivery on a specific type of equipment. Our standard response involves asking the customer a series of questions ranging from what the product is, estimated throughput rates, percentage of plus and minus screen size, and others. We typically also ask for an application data sheet to be filled out. All this helps remove the guesswork out of equipment sizing. Sometimes the customer thinks he knows what is required based on past experience or what someone else has told him he needs. While many times these assumptions may be correct, we want to make sure what we sell the customer will ultimately meet or exceed their expectations. While filling out forms and asking questions definitely assists in proper screener selection, I have found asking for a sample of the product for in house testing eliminates all the guesswork out of the equipment selection process. If time permits and the customer requires we can also send out a demonstration model for a short in-house testing period.

Running tests on a sample or sending out a demonstration model will ultimately remove all the guesswork out of equipment selection. Read More…

Jeff Hochadel

Jeff Hochadel has over 25 years of experience building and selling vibratory screening equipment. Jeff is responsible for handling fine mesh screening applications for The Cleveland Vibrator Company. His expertise is utilizing our Ultrasonic Deblinding System to solve difficult screening problems. When Jeff is not visiting customers promoting our products you can most likely find him fly fishing.

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Ultrasonic Sieving Solutions For Product Contamination Complications

Ultrasonic Sieving Solutions For Product Contamination Complications

By Jeff Hochadel

Sep 23

If you are familiar with ultrasonic sieving and have concerns over contamination of your product then this blog will grab your attention. Recently, one of our customers approached us with a difficult request. They needed to have an ultrasonic screener that consisted of 100% stainless steel contact parts. A traditional screener consisting of all stainless steel contact parts did not produce the yield and throughput needed for their process and inquired about providing a screener with ultrasonics. This request included the screen frame and the sieving surface (wire mesh) had to be free of any adhesives, etc.

Since our standard ultrasonic frames are machined aluminum this posed a challenge for us. Although we have tried making stainless steel screen frames in the past, the density of the stainless gave us some issues in transmitting out ultrasonics through the frame and across the screen surface. The second requirement of the screen surface is clear of any transducers which was an easy one for us since we currently do not attach our Read More…

Jeff Hochadel

Jeff Hochadel has over 25 years of experience building and selling vibratory screening equipment. Jeff is responsible for handling fine mesh screening applications for The Cleveland Vibrator Company. His expertise is utilizing our Ultrasonic Deblinding System to solve difficult screening problems. When Jeff is not visiting customers promoting our products you can most likely find him fly fishing.

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Strike & High G’s, A Vibratory Table’s Compaction Conundrum

Strike & High G’s, A Vibratory Table’s Compaction Conundrum

By CVC Team

Jun 09

My mom just had her 80^th birthday the other day. To celebrate the milestone, one of my sisters and her husband are taking my mom on an Alaskan cruise, I’m sure it will be a great adventure. A few years back I had the opportunity to visit Alaska as part of a Cleveland Vibrator Company project, I was there to provide start up assistance and review the installation of a piece our equipment. From start to finish it was a very interesting application of mechanical vibration to assist in the compaction of a dry material. Throw in a trip to Alaska and it became quite memorable.

Cleveland Vibrator Company was contacted by a large engineering firm that was involved in a remediation project at a military installation in Alaska. The company was removing contaminated soil from the site. The soil was to be placed in steel containers and shipped off site. Their challenge to us was to increase the density of the soil, put more material in the box than could be accomplished with just “dumping” soil into the container. Read More…
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Fine Powder Screening and Timely Solutions: Ultrasonic Sieving Systems

Fine Powder Screening and Timely Solutions: Ultrasonic Sieving Systems

By Jeff Hochadel

May 05

Sometimes a screening application cannot be solved by simply placing the product on the sieve surface and allowing the screener to do its job. For example, round screeners are designed to separate material by particle size. However, this simple process can occasionally cause problems or damage to the product and require the HK Ultrasonic Sieving System to properly separate the material, specifcally spherical material like solder powder (see picture).

What happens when spherical material is on the screen surface too long?

Damage or oxidization can occur to the spheres if left on the screen surface too long. Particle size separation is also very critical. More difficult-to-sieve powders fall into different categories based upon size: Type 4 (-400 +635 mesh), Type 5 (-500 mesh), Type 6 (-635 mesh), and Type 7 and 8 which have a slow sieving process.

The Model HK Incline

Recently, a customer inquired about a standard lab fine mesh ultrasonic sieving demo of his Type 4, 5, and 6 solder powder. Solder powder is generally very spherical and sieves very well when applying the HK Ultrasonic Sieving System to the screen surface. Our small lab models use 8” or 12” diameter sieves equipped with our HK Ultrasonic Sieving System.

Just as we thought, he called after a couple of weeks of working with the demo and said the lab unit was very efficient at sieving the powders. However, the length of time the powder spent on the sieve surface damaged his spheres. We explained that we will need to remove the covers off the screen surface in a much quicker time frame while still removing all of the fines.

Our suggestion was to try our HK Incline. To visualize, please check out the video below. The HK Incline is a very unique Ultrasonic Sieving System that utilizes rectangular screen frames and no mechanical vibration. We designed the HK Incline to rely strictly on ultrasonic energy to move the powder down the screen surface.

Model: HK Incline

Here’s how it works:

You load a small hopper/feeder with your powder and a small electromagnetic feeder feeds the powder onto our special ultrasonic rectangular sieve frames. While the ultrasonics are pulsing on/off, the powder is moving down the screen surface. The fine grain particles pass through the sieve either on to a second mesh or into a fine grain collection funnel. The oversized materials are discharged off the ends of the screen frames into collection containers.

Moreover, what we like about this style of equipment is the ability to adjust the feed rate and product yield. There is a little bit of magic on our end in designing the screen frames and adhering the sieve material to the frames but the end result is a very efficient Ultrasonic Sieving System. Check out this product data-sheet to learn more.

So, back to the customer. After trying out the HK Incline with the HK Ultrasonic Sieving System on his solder powder, he loved it!

Keep in mind, the HK Incline is not for every application. If you have a powder that agglomerates or does not flow well the HK Incline will not be effective. But if you have a fine, free-flowing powder the HK Incline could be your ticket.

Want more information about this product? Contact us today!

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Jeff Hochadel

Jeff Hochadel has over 25 years of experience building and selling vibratory screening equipment. Jeff is responsible for handling fine mesh screening applications for The Cleveland Vibrator Company. His expertise is utilizing our Ultrasonic Deblinding System to solve difficult screening problems. When Jeff is not visiting customers promoting our products you can most likely find him fly fishing.

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What happens when spherical material is on the screen surface too long?

The Model HK Incline

Here’s how it works:

Solutions in Motion!

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