Specialist Oil Filtration Units Keeping Oil Clean at Moldwel Plastic Injection Factory

Moldwel is a leading plastic injection moulding company. They specialise in designing and manufacturing a wide variety of plastic products. In this industry, reputation for high quality plastic components with swift turnaround times is key to continued business growth and Moldwel enjoy an excellent reputation for their products and service. The reliability of their machines is vital to the day to day running of the company, as they commit to continued quality and efficiency.

As with all companies relying on machinery with in-built hydraulic systems, unclean oil has been a cause for concern. Oil that is contaminated with water or small particles of debris can cause damage and corrosion to components within the hydraulic system, resulting in machinery breakdown. Upon analysis, the oil in the Moldwel hydraulics was found to be highly contaminated. This dirty oil was causing problems with valves and other components, meaning expensive repairs, as well as the associated costs of downtime.

Earlier this year, Apex had the opportunity to present the company with a demonstration of a bypass filtration unit after Moldwel had heard recommendations from several other injection moulding companies. The filtration unit attaches to almost any injection moulding machine, running oil through its filtration system a small amount at a time, producing extremely clean oil which is then fed back into the hydraulic reservoir. When the unit is run at slow speeds, the particles can be removed down to one micron (three microns absolute), and almost 100% of water can be filtered out. The unit means that the machine’s own filters (which are often expensive to replace and difficult to access) last far longer. Impressed with what they saw, Moldwel immediately requested that the units be fitted to all of their machines; a total of around a dozen.

Filtration engineers provided by Apex Hydraulics attended the site to do a survey; to analyse the unit’s positions and to measure up fittings and hoses. At this point they consulted the Moldwel management to plan a program that would be convenient to the factory routine, causing as little disruption as possible to the day-to-day running of the company. As with all injection moulding companies, a loss of working hours has large impacts on profitability.Therefore, Apex engineers were careful to establish which machines were being used when, in order to calculate the best times to fit each machine.

They were not disruptive at all… they worked around us.

Managing Director, Andrew Penn was delighted with the low level of disruption caused by the fitting and installation of the filtration units. He states “They were not disruptive at all. They fitted bypass filtration units to all of the machines within three days. They worked around us.”

Andrew sees the machine fittings as a long term investment and a part of the company’s preventative maintenance plan for their equipment. He says that with the filtration units, “our pumps and valves will keep working a lot longer than they may have done otherwise.”
Initially the oil required frequent filter changes, to reduce the backlog of contamination in the oil. As the oil was brought into a proportional condition of around NAS 6, the units required less frequent filter changes to keep the hydraulic oil uncontaminated. Changing the filters in the unit is quick and efficient, as the filtration units can be isolated from the circuit, so that the machinery can carry on working while the filters are changed, meaning next to no down time.

In the past five months, since the new filtration units were fitted there have been no further problems with the hydraulic valves and the machinery has been running smoothly. This means there has been no downtime or repair costs for Moldwel, leaving them free to concentrate on continuing to provide the standard of service that their customers expect.

Apex provided excellent service and worked around us; ensuring that having the filtration units fitted did not disrupt the day to day running of our business.

For a demonstration of our filter unit rigs, or to have a test rig installed for FREE, please call us on 01924 456788.