If you’re a project manager or site foreman – here’s an important question you should find out if you don’t already know. What generation of abrasive metering valve do you have on your blast pots?
It may surprise you that your metering valve is one of the most significant indicators of your efficiency and profit. This is one of the most important (yet neglected) considerations on the majority of jobsites we visit. It’s so important in fact – that if you’re a project manager looking to turn ONE DIAL to improve your team’s performance – we suggest investigating your abrasive metering valve. It’s to your financial advantage to understand the metering valve you’re using and why it’s most likely costing you hundreds of dollars a day in inefficiencies.
First… here’s a general layout of the abrasive metering valves currently in use. These are listed from least efficient to most efficient across the broad range of blasting applications.
So, what makes one metering valve any better than another? ONE metric. Which valve saves you the most money? And this metric should be evaluated on the following 4 criteria:
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We’ve explained these costs in a previous Primed Insight if you’d like to learn more. But suffice it to say, thousands of dollars can be lost each day simply by saving $200 on the purchase of a cheap metering valve. This is something every project manager should pay attention to.
A popular misunderstanding is all these valves represent different methods of metering. That is not correct. Each column is actually a generational improvement on the previous valves.
Think of the above valves through this perspective:
Engineering and materials have improved with each product upgrade.
Now, as we’re presented things, it may seem that the silver bullet to everyone’s problems is simply to buy this most current valve – The Axxiom Schmidt TeraValve.
And it probably is our top recommendation. It not only improves efficiency across the broadest range of industrial applications, but surprisingly, it also costs less than its predecessor – The Thompson 2 Valve.
However, for high flow jobs that use multiple #10 nozzles or in blast room situations using a robot, the Thompson 2 is actually our top recommendation.
Now in case you think we’re just trying to sell you a more expensive valve – here’s an insight within an insight…
Because we’re a business like you, profit and loss is something we must also manage. That’s why we have installed over 200 Tera Valves on our vast rental fleet. You can imagine that renting blast pots comes with quite a bit of maintenance and repair when they’re returned. We discovered that simply by installing Tera Valves on our rental pots, those maintenance costs dropped 75%.
THAT’S why we recommend TeraValves. They’re a superior product.
And in case you’re interested – this link leads to a Tera Valve retrofit kit so you can upgrade your current pot to the latest and greatest generation of metering valves.
If you have questions as to which valve is best for your pot and applications – just reach out and ask. That’s our job!
We’re discussing the iconic combo valve from Axiom manufacturing today. This is a deadman valve which controls the air into, and the air out-of, your blast pot. It’s how your deadman works on a pressure release blast pot. That is a blast pot where the pressure is released out of the pot every time we stop blasting, versus a pressure hold where the pressure is kept in the blast pot when we stop blasting.
At the core of a pressure-release blast pot is this deadman valve called the combo valve and the reason is was the first valve in the industry to combine both the inlet which you see on this side and the outlet which you see on the other side into one valve.
There’s three key criteria in choosing a dead man valve for a blast pot. The first is safety. I’d like to go through the key safety requirements for the combo valve.
The first is that the air from the blast pot is exhausted through a piece of blast hose.
This is a failsafe aspect to this valve because it has a large spring it automatically when you lose pressure or something goes wrong this opens up and lets the air of the blast pot out.
The second thing is, because it has such a large piston and spring, it’s very fast active. That is very important because if there’s an incident takes place I need to make sure the blast pot shuts down as soon as possible.
The second key purchasing criteria for a Deadman control valve is productivity. The way to maximize productivity is to minimize pressure drop, and the way we do that with the combo valve is that as the air comes in to the bottom of the valve… travels up and through and heads on to blast, it passes through the valve itself.
Many valves have a restricted convoluted air passageway through the valve. Not the combo valve. It has a single plug that blocks the air and when it activates it pulls right out of the way and allows full and free airflow.
The third important criteria is how easy the valve is to maintain. How easy it is to use.
I’d like to point out two key benefits:
The first is the most common wearing part – is this hose. No need to rebuild the valve it’s simply a matter of refitting it just like you refit a blast hose. So that’s a very significant time saver.
Then if something goes wrong with the valve itself, it has what we call a unitized piston assembly – you see one here in my hand. It allows you to very simply undo four bolts, change-out the entire working center of the valve, put the four bolts back in, and be up and operating again in less than 10 minutes.
No need to pull the valve off the pot, no need to get out thread tape, no need to touch the piping. It’s a massive benefit to operators in the field.
Two things to remember: combo valve must be used with the Schmidt Deadman handle. They are designed to work together, and the use of non-standard or other brand Deadman handles is a safety hazard. And the last point is make sure you use genuine parts. It’s a safety requirement on every job site that genuine parts are used.
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