A Java aqueous washing and drying machine has been supplied by Hampshire-based Turbex to a UK manufacturer of automotive transmissions, resulting in a major reduction in the time taken to prepare steel components for heat treatment (www.turbex.co.uk).

A basket of 30 parts can now be processed in around 15min, compared to about 45min before.

The reason for the former lengthy processing time was the 2016 legislation banning the use of trichloroethylene in systems that are not hermetically sealed.

The manufacturer switched to another methylene chloride, which turned out to be less effective at removing coolant residue from machined components.

To avoid the risk of passivation, an extra process of manual cleaning was added, which was time-consuming and resulted in bottlenecks.

The Turbex Java machine now washes and degreases parts reliably — and to a high level of cleanliness — before heat treatment.

Dramatic time savings have resulted, especially when processing dozens of complex parts with intricate machined features, as they can now be batch-cleaned automatically in one basket.

The Turbex system comprises two tanks, one for spray or flood washing in the presence of ultrasonics, the other for rinsing in RO (reverse osmosis) water.

A patented feature of the machine is the ability to program the basket and spray bars to counter-rotate, which amplifies the cleaning effect and improves the penetration of the water into difficult-to-reach areas.

Drying completes the process — either with hot air at ambient pressure for general use or with a vacuum for more-complex parts (this extends the cycle time by about 5min).