HARD MACHINING

Difficult-to-machine materials (“Hard Machining”) require high-performance coolant technology for faster cutting, longer tool life, and better surface finishes. Cutting superhard, abrasive, and low thermal conductivity materials such as tungsten carbide, nickel-based alloys, titanium, and ceramics generates a lot of friction and heat. Conventional flood coolant schemes using straight oils or water-oil emulsions provide unnecessary trade-offs between optimal lubricity and cooling power. Conventional MQCL (minimum quantity cooling lubrication) schemes using air-oil aerosols cause premature wheel wear and poor surface finish due to inadequate heat management, low surface cleaning capacity, and insufficient chip evacuation. With increased cutting speeds and depths of cut, both conventional flood and MQCL coolant schemes can be ineffective or result in less-than-optimal hard machining productivity and quality. Higher friction and heat lead to faster abrasive wear, dimensional control problems, burning, poor surface finish, more frequent wheel dressing, or the need for costly post-finishing and cleaning operations – all representing lost cash flow.

Our Kutter Kooler_™ systems significantly increase the productivity and profitability of your challenging machining operations, such as drilling, milling, and grinding. The Kutter Kooler systems produce and project CO₂-based Dry, MQCL, and VPCL (Vapor Phase Cooling Lubricant) metalworking fluids into the cutting zone – external or through tool sprays. CO₂ metalworking fluids are fully adjustable combinations of compressed air (propellant gas and oxygen), minimal amounts of dense micronized CO₂ particles (adjustable 1.5 to 8 lbs/hour), and adjustable amounts of oils and additives (adjustable 50 to 150 mls/hour), or your standard lubricant. Kutter Kooler systems provide considerable gains in productivity, quality, and profitability. The Kutter Kooler system uses a centralized CO₂ coolant (R744) supply system that supports multiple machining tool adaptations using standard or machine-customized cooling-lubrication applicators.

Historical Documents

Laser Cutting Residues

Fiber Optic Residues

Resistive Residues (CRES)

Magnetic Particles

Laser Welding Oxides

Solder Flux Residues

Microscopic Particles

Laser Processing Residue

What Do Our Customers Say

The purpose of surface cleaning is to remove deposits that might cause damage through abrasion, absorption of acidic gases, or serve as medium for mould growth.

Simple dry cleaning of surfaces using erasers and sponges requires contact with surface which might also cause alteration of surface properties (flattening, eraser residues). With respect to basic requirement to avoid material degradation an alternative non-contact method might be CO2 snow jet cleaning performed using a Precision Spray Cleaning Pen (SnoPen SP 2000, Cleanlogix).

Artificialy soiled samples of wood-based and cotton-based paper were cleaned by the CO2 snow jet with a carbon dioxide flow rate of 3.0 g/s and a nitrogen flow rate of 1.4 l/s and by the nitrogen jet at the same flow rate. Paralel samples were cleaned by traditional mechanical cleaning methods. The effect of treatment was evaluated by optical microscopy.

The results showed that the CO2 snow jet cleaning effectively removed particles in the lower layers of the paper surface, including interfiber spaces.

The CO2 snow jet cleaning compared with the mechanical dry cleaning showed similar effectiveness without any adverse effects on the paper surface. It was proved that the CO2 snow technique is a suitable method for cleaning common types of paper materials.

Jiri Smolik
Institute of Chemical Process Fundamentals Czech Republic (ICPF)

Clean Imagineering was able to quickly provide us a CO2 composite spray system as a rental unit to allow us to perform process trials and demonstrate its effectiveness. We only needed to provide compressed air and a liquid CO2 tank. We had the unit for 2 months and were provided with good advice on initial instrument settings. In that time we were able to devise a safe and effective cleaning process for our sensitive micro-electronics assembly.

Pascal Marais
Sanmina

High Pressure Technologies, a supplier of High Pressure Testing equipment have been using Clean Imagineering for several years for High purity Cleaning of Pressure Gauges for the Aviation, Space and other industries, using their highly successful CO2 extraction methods. Applications involving high purity gases or Oxygen must be have products cleaned to meet the relevant specifications. Most pressure gauges are tested and/or calibrated by the manufacturer using mineral oils and are difficult to clean using traditional solvent cleaning methods. This is especially true when the gauges use bourdon tube internals where the internal orifice size is extremely small. Clean Imagineering have been able to provide us with cleanliness levels that have exceeded those previously obtained using solvent cleaning and which meet the stringent requirements of our customers.

Peter Duffy
HPT

As a company that produces products of the highest quality, CICOIL chooses Clean Imagineering for the following reasons.

Reliability: Clean Imagineering has proven itself by consistently delivering products of the highest quality;
Flexibility: Clean Imagineering friendly staff is very willing to work with us to tailor their processes/procedures to meet our stringent requirements;
Cost: Clean Imagineering is able to process larger batches than their competitor, therefore providing significant cost savings for CICOIL;
Location: This not only saves time and money on shipping, but also allows CICOIL to support our local economy;
Knowledge: When faced with a new and particularly hard to remove contaminant, we were able to draw upon Clean Imagineering’s vast experience and knowledge to provide us with a solution.

Robert Newbrey
CiCoil

For Application of PowerSno™ system: It was used to remove silicone oil or contaminants on the surface of nylon material.
For Operation of PowerSno™ system: It is pretty simple to use.
For Support: Clean Imagineering is responsive and provide immediate response and feedback.

Alan Ngo
Emerald Medical Services Pte Ltd

The PowerSno rental from Clean Imagineering is efficient and cost effective. The Clean Imagineering representatives make sure to give you all of the necessary information to have a quick and successful rental period. Amanda, David, and Mack provided answers to every single one of my questions throughout the whole rental process. Their combined assistance allowed me to successfully run tests without an interruption.

Quinn McKenna
Evaporated Coatings, Inc.

“AMAZING CUSTOMER SERVICE”

My engineer was tasked with finding a way to plasma etch polymer optics to meet my customer’s deadline. With Clean Imagineering support and CO2 plasma systems, we achieved our goals. I was very pleased with the customer service provided to us.

David Demelo
Diverse Optics, Inc.

Incredibly effective for certain applications. We build high precision laser machines that produce very fine debris that adheres to the surface after machining. Some of our applications typically require overnight cleaning in an ultrasonic with all sorts of chemicals, and the PowerSno legitimately cleans them better in under a minute. We’re amazed. We were skeptical at first, but their sales team helped us test with a few of our samples. Now we’ve had the unit for a few months and are very happy with it.

John Taseff
GF Machining Solutions