Cooling & Cleaning in Harsh Paper Machine Environments

Air consumption plays an important role when figuring out new ways of saving energy at a paper mill.

Cooling cameras and lights in different machine positions can require a substantial amount of cooling air.

As the number of cameras along the paper machine have increased in recent years, the selection of an optimized way to cool is playing more and more important role in reducing air consumption.

Procemex has developed a new set of tools to reduce instrument air consumption:

Air Management System offers 10 – 40 % reduction in air consumption by:

• using chained & shared air for cameras and lights
• using water cooling for lights
• fine tuning air flow based on measured real need

Web monitoring cameras are kept clean under harsh wet end conditions with the aid of instrument air flow. The air is blown through a 5 mm hole in front of the camera housing. As the air flow speeds up when passing the pinhole it forms a strong protection against dirt and prevents water and dirt from entering the camera housing. The housing has no protection window that could get dirty or wear out. The camera is equipped with a dedicated pinhole zoom lens capable of viewing through the hole.

The benefits of pinhole cleaning are trouble-free operation, low air consumption, 100% continuous visibility and the simplicity of the concept. There are no moving and wearing parts: wipers, electronics or controlling components. Continuous air flow enables Pinhole cameras to film undisturbed 100% of the time without washing cycles or wiper movements causing blind times during the cleaning process.

Camera Cooling

Cameras are cooled by using the same instrument air as for pinhole cleaning. Temperature insulation inside the camera housing reduces to some extent the need for cooling. In some positions warmer than 60 C/ 140 F it is necessary to use a Vortex cooler to guarantee a suitable ambient temperature for the camera. In extremely hot positions like in modern impingement dryers reaching 200 – 250 C/390-480 F ambient temperatures, it is necessary to use water to cool the cameras.

Strobing Keeps LED Flashlights Cool

To meet health and safety and fire safety demands the web monitoring and inspection lights use strobe lighting, with low energy consumption and remain cool even in hot positions.

This makes them a perfect choice for positions with potential fire risks for e.g. in dryer sections. The web monitoring strobe LED lights are in stainless steel housings along the paper making process. They have been designed to take ambient temperatures up to 250C/480 F and have an indirect cooling system for hot positions.

Strobe LED Flashlight Cleaning

LED-lights are cleaned with a thinwater film over the protection window in demanding wet end positions.

The web inspection cameras and LED illumination modules in carbon fibre frame are cooled by blowing air through the camera and light frames.

Stainless steel strobe LED lights feature indirect air cooling.