Ease of maintenance.
While the concept is appealing, SFP do not believe that a ‘maintenance free’ solution to high pressure homogenisation equipment is feasible. While aiming to make our systems the most reliable possible SFP have long adopted the view for all high pressure systems that if you cannot avoid maintenance, then make it easy. The HydLok construction takes this philosophy to a major step further by making most routine maintenance tasks simple and within the scope of even basically trained operators. No longer does routine maintenance require specialist skills or even outside assistance; and such maintenance is accomplished quickly and easily without the protracted strip down associated with traditional high pressure designs.
Maintenance mode on systems is
push button or switch selected and on selecting this mode the system automatically (production systems) or semi-automatically (bench
top systems); unclamps and opens up for maintenance, or cleaning.
When the system is reassembled, the closing is automatically controlled to provide the correct amount of closing force, no reliance on even tightening of bolts and precise settings on torque wrenches.
In many applications pumping a system through with cleaning agents will suffice as a cleaning procedure. However, there
are many applications where it is necessary to ensure the equipment is thoroughly clean with no remnants of previous use. The necessity
of this is clearly seen when stripping machines which have been ‘flushed’ clean and when stripped down for inspection are found to
still have significant quantities of product trapped in seals and areas of stagnant flow.
