"DRY CLEANING MACHINE REQUIREMENTS FOR OPTIMUM PERFORMANCE
Aside from the maintenance mentioned in the previous chapter, we need to make sure we have the right conditions as well in terms of chilled water, steam pressure and mini boiler (electrical heated machines).
5.1. Chilled Water:
Chilled water is very important for the following reasons:
- 1- Solvent recovery during distillation as it passes through a coil in the
condensing tank to secure a cold surface for solvent vapour coming from the distillation tank to condense back into liquid. Lack of chilled water will slow the distillation process and the condensed solvent will be very hot and will trigger an alarm.
- 2- It passes through a coil in the refrigerating unit to cool down the Freon between the condenser and the evaporator. The lack of chilled water will lead to a high temperature in the Freon entering the evaporator and it will not evaporate completely and thus a liquid Freon will reach the compressor creating high pressure and temperature triggering an alarm and in the same time the solvent vapor from the drying process will not be able to condensate back to liquid and will be trapped till the end of the cycle and once the loading door is open, it will emit to air aside from the solvent trapped in the garments.
The chilled water quality has 3 main factor to consider for optimum performance:
• Purity: by constantly cleaning the chilled water tank.
• Pressure: the optimum pressure is between 3.0 – 5.5 bars.
• Temperature: the optimum temperature is between 10 – 15 °C
Steam Pressure:
In steam heated machines, we need the right steam pressure to achieve the optimum drying and distillation temperatures.
For distillation, the required temperature is between 120-130 °C and in order to achieve that we need a steam with temperature between 135- 140 °C and the pressure should be between 3.2 – 4.0 bars.
Mini Boiler Constant Refill (Electrical Version):
Different models from different brands make a variety on the method of refilling the mini boiler with water.
• Fully Automatic: when starting the machine in the morning while the distillation tank is cold, a sensor will give the signal to open the water valve and fill the mini boiler if there is any lack of water.
•Semi-Automatic: in this models there is usually a button on front side of the machine which you need to press and hold and a light will turn on if there is a lack of water and will turn off after the mini boiler is filled and then you can release the button.
•Manual: you have to open manual valves and observe until the water star to over flow from the levelling valve.
"
