Maintaining Your Hot Melt Equipment.

Keeping your hot melt equipment running smoothly is a high priority for companies. If you want to get the best performance out of your equipment for a prolonged period of time preventative maintenance is a must. Here are some crucial points when thinking about implementing a preventative maintenance plan.

• Scheduling: Finding the time to perform maintenance on production lines is hard. If you’re not running you’re not producing product. However, if you choose not to do preventative maintenance this can cause unscheduled downtime due to equipment issues. The best way to come up with a proven PM schedule is to look at your annual schedule as best you can at the beginning of each year and schedule at minimum quarterly maintenance routines. Choosing when to do your PM important. Look at each quarter at the beginning and project then schedule what the optimal time to do your PM for that quarter.
• Know the properties of the Adhesive you’re using: Let’s face it, not all adhesives act the same under certain temperatures. Knowing what type of adhesive product you’re using is a key in determining how much time you have before each PM. Certain adhesives have better or worse heat tolerances. The lower the heat tolerance the more prevalent char will accrue in your tanks, hoses, and heads/modules.
• Testing adhesive output: Whatever brand of hot melt equipment you have it is important to know the adhesive output it produces for your specific application. The best way to determine this on your initial set up is to have a glue pressure gauge on the output of your manifold. To learn more on the benefits of a glue pressure gauge click here. Document the adhesive pressure when the equipment is installed and when performing your PM make sure there is no variance on your adhesive pressure when you’re running production. If there is a drastic drop in adhesive pressure when performing your PM your pump is probably starting to fail.
• Changing filters: One of the easiest ways to help the battle against char is to change your filters regularly. Look in your hot melt equipment’s manual to determine where each filter is and have replacement filters in stock to change out for old clogged filters. Safety Tip: Make sure you shut off the pump and remove pressure before you change any filters!

Have questions on preventative maintenance or would like to learn more about our services schedule an appointment  sales@greatlakesadhesives.com or call us at 616-227-0201