How to choose the right steel casting cleaning equipment

Casting cleaning is one of the necessary production processes for any foundry machinery factory. In addition to casting type such as size, shape, weight, and production speed, capacity requirements will affect the choice of shot blasting machine, there are other considerations. Various molding process lines produce thousands of casting types and structures, which are matched by a variety of combinations of cooling and shakeout methods. The process of all these upstream processes can affect cleaning requirements. In addition, downstream production, such as the opinions of the end user of the casting, will also affect the choice of shot blasting equipment for the foundry. 
The ideal temperature for casting shot blasting cleaning is preferably close to the ambient temperature, but the cooling time of each foundry is not the same, so the temperature of the casting into the shot blasting room is also very different. Therefore, the design of the shot blasting machine should take into account the highest possible temperature of the user's production, assuming that the customer needs to clean such an extremely high temperature casting, the design of the shot blasting machine must meet such requirements, so as to reduce future maintenance, downtime and other problems including operational safety hazards. Generally, the shot blasting machine used in the foundry can handle castings with a surface temperature height of about 100°c. At this temperature, it is not suitable to use rubber track conveying shot blasting machine, but to choose steel track or manganese steel track conveying shot blasting machine. At high temperatures, such as up to 175°c, special high-temperature seals, curtains and elevator tracks must be supplemented. 
These high-temperature operations will also put special requirements on equipment maintenance, hot parts, hot machines and hot abrasives, for equipment maintenance, operating safety is a challenge. In such a production situation, bearing lubrication, conveyor belt design, material composition of wearing parts, ventilation and control systems often need to be replaced. Chains and other non-combustible materials replace rubber seals, curtains and tracks. Therefore, high temperature castings will affect the choice of shot blasting equipment, and the appropriate equipment can meet the requirements of efficient cleaning, safe production and reduced maintenance. 
For sand casting, most of the sand is removed by the drop sand process. This helps in cooling and reduces the effort of the next step of shot blasting sand removal. There are also some foundries, without the shakeout process, directly by the shot blasting machine to complete the sand cleaning task. In some cases, there may be more sand on the castings entering the shot blasting chamber than on the metal itself. Therefore, for such applications, the shot blasting equipment needs to be designed with a special recovery system to handle the large amount of sand produced during the shot blasting process and then separate the waste sand from the round steel shot abrasive screen via a magnetic separator or air separator. 
If the air separator is selected, it is necessary to use a double-layer air blow down device with a secondary magnetic separation/wind separation design. For high temperature sand casting cleaning, it is necessary to carefully select the separator, because high temperature will reduce the effect of magnetic sorting. For example, in order to improve the cleaning coverage and ensure that all surfaces of the workpiece are cleaned, the mold is usually placed on the table or in the rotary hook basket, and then sent to the shot blasting room, while rotating, while cleaning. 
If vibration shakeout is to be performed before shot blasting, a vibration device or roller is usually selected. Drum shakeout, using a rolling medium, can reduce the sand attached to the surface of the casting and facilitate subsequent shot blasting cleaning. 
After analyzing the impact of the upstream process on the shot blasting requirements, the next step is to select the type of cleaning, such as batch, or continuous through, or individual cleaning. General batch models include crawler type, hook type, rotary table shot blasting machine, its advantage is that the shot blasting time can be adjusted according to the different structure, shape and size of different castings, and one-time cleaning can be achieved. The caterpillar shot blasting machine is a batch cleaning system with high production efficiency, and the castings can be cleaned while rolling without damaging the parts. Automatic loading and unloading further increases production capacity. Rotary hook type shot blasting machine is suitable for cleaning thin walls or fragile, fragile parts. Rotary table shot blasting machines are suitable for large castings or those that cannot be rolled over, the hook/chain cannot be load-bearing or cannot be easily fixed on it. 
For foundries with high yield requirements, continuous cleaning systems are often selected, including continuous track shot blasting machines, continuous drum shot blasting machines, vibrating tunnel shot blasting machines and mesh belt through shot blasting machines. For most continuous cleaning operations, especially when customers are cleaning castings of many different structures and sizes, it is important to determine the delivery system size and blast chamber capacity to minimize the need for rework. The size of the continuous shot blasting machine must be determined according to the weight of the heaviest workpiece to be cleaned by the customer, the volume of the casting and the average tonnage passed per hour. 
Whether you choose continuous or batch shot blasting equipment, casting density is another important consideration. Some types of machines are designed to clean special casting types, such as robotic automatic shot blasting machines to clean the cylinder block and head, manual shot blasting machines, inclined belt shot blasting machines to clean the brake drum, rotary roller shot blasting machines to clean the cast pipe. Beam and roller type cleaning machines with automatic nozzles inside the cylinder block and cylinder head. The hanging shot blasting machine is a combination of batch type and through type two workpiece transport methods, suitable for a variety of castings, high output cleaning requirements. 
For foundry companies, the most common process is shot blasting after sand drop and edge cutting. Sometimes, the cleaning of the injection gate attached to the casting is carried out together with the cleaning of the casting sand; Sometimes, the cleaning of the gate is separated by a separate process.