Polifluid’s Benefits for Finishing Technology

What does it mean to manufacture a stronger standard? At DeGeeast, it means to solve challenges and help manufacturers achieve more through our people, our technology, and our belief that anything is possible. This is manufacturing a stronger standard, a podcast by Degist. Hello and welcome to Manufacturing a Stronger Standard, your source for thought leadership in manufacturing. And finishing from Degist Corporation, I'm Tyler Kern. Thanks so much for joining us for this episode of the show. Now we're continuing a series with Degist called What's New in Finishing Technology, and today's episode is going to focus on polyfluid. And joining me today are two subject matter experts, and they're gonna tell us all about polyfluid, what it does, where it came from, and, what it's used for. So, first and foremost, we have Derek DeGeese joining us, president of DeGeese Corporation and Lesta USA. Derek, thanks for being here. Yes. Thank you, Tyler. And we also have Bill Robinson, president of coding delivery technology. Bill, thank you so much for being here today. Great to be here. Great to talk to you, Derek. We've been so busy. It's been a while. It has been a busy time. It's a good time to be busy. And, Derek, let's start off just by talking about what is polyfluid, when did you first come across it, and, how does this also, bring Bill into the picture? Yeah. It's actually pretty interesting. We were this came about just by us as we were bringing less to USA into our company and then to North America. As we're looking at what that opens up by having robotics and automation in your general industry application, we now have access to other products that can enhance the that system even further. Because the more the more variables, the more things that you can control, the the more opportunities and other things open up. And so as we are touring over in Europe, which, by the way, has, like, way cool stuff over there, equipment and technologies we don't have in the US. And so I kept stumbling upon products that we didn't have here. I'm like, what is this? And how does what what does this do? And so, Polyfluid was one of those one of those products. We were over at looking at a lot of power applications where the Lester robotics had had been implemented in and been used for a long time. You know, robotics, cell phone and robots have been used over in Europe for thirty years. So they're everywhere and everyone's using them. So what was previously, we thought impossible is just common practice. And so with that, we found that the poly fluid unit was on a lot of row of our robotic applications that we had. And and the reason they do it is because it's a product that eliminates variables, and it can be used, in a robotic application and controlled and do a lot of really cool things. So, as we look to bring over this technology to add to our paint systems, we then wanted to find a way also to be able to help our customers, our less to USA customers, because first and foremost, we wanted to eliminate variables for our customers and make a more proven application process. And so by doing that, we, contacted CDT Technologies, which is the, the master distributor and and would bring in these products and sell them. And, we met Bill, and, the we hit it off, put our systems in our our our company, and, started doing systems together. And the rest is kinda history. So, it's been a great partnership. And, I'd love for Bill, maybe you can tell us what is Polyfluid. I'll let you kick it off, man. This is your baby here. So tell me. Tell us all. What is it? So they know that we met, you know, when we put NitroTherm, which is our liquid product in, in your facility, and they can see it in Europe with the polyfluid as well. But, and I had no idea at the time that, we would work together as to market these products. But then as you moved into, marketing the products and we got the polyfluid, which is a powder coating application product, It's been it's been an amazing, journey already. The polyfluid, we've been doing NitroTherm on the liquid end for fifteen to eighteen years. The polyfluid is a brand new technology. And, at one of the powder shows I was at about two years ago, more than one person came and said this is the the only thing that's really changed in powder in thirty years. And the polyfluid is, is an exciting technology. Basically, what we're doing is we're taking the compressed air because all powder is dispensed through compressed air. Compressed air is the carrier that pushes the powder to the gun. And it's the atomizing air that that, pushes the powder past the charge and onto the product. And so the atomizing in compressed air is critical in powder. The humidity is also critical in powder because as you add moisture to powder, any type of moisture or contamination, it tends to clump up and clog and and causes a whole lot of challenges. So the polyfluid system works by we take the your compressed air or plant compressed air, and we hook it up into our system. And, basically, what our system is doing, it's using a membrane, compressed air, just like your breathing air, seventy eight percent nitrogen, and twenty one percent oxygen and inert and weird stuff, humidity, moisture that changes with temperature and with heat. And we filter everything out, put about ninety seven, ninety eight percent, nitrogen. Nitrogen is inert, and Hydrus has a dew point of about minus one fifty four, which is critical for powder. It's tremendous. So when we when we switch to that as a carrier, we automatically eliminate a lot of challenges with with fluidization and with the atomizing air for powder. They're able to actually reduce the amount of atomizing air that they're using, for the powder. The second thing with powder, is that, actually, science has shown a while ago, but we just implemented it with powders, that there's an ideal temperature for applying powder, and it's actually not heated. It's chilled. And so besides converting it to nitrogen, we actually chill the nitrogen to the optimal temperature for application. And the third thing that we do with the polyfluid is we have an ionization charge. We're putting a charge of either positive or negative, a pulsating charge in in polyfluid, on the actual, compressed nitrogen now. And you put these three things together, and you get some, tremendous results. You're able to get, a higher transfer efficiency. You know, one of the big things in powder is you're putting five mils on everywhere to guarantee you get the two or three mils in the very tough areas, the hard corners and angles. And the ionization helps, eliminate Faraday issues. And if you do a dry film check on a product, you're gonna find that our deviation is is much less when you're spraying with polyfluid. And that that makes a higher quality finish. And you put those three things together and you're saving powder. Lots of times you can increase the actual production line speed because the transfer efficiency is better. Although it's only been out for about, well, really, I guess, six years in Europe now and about, four years here, we're having very good success with it. And since we started working with you, Derek, where you have the lab, where you have the systems in there and you can demonstrate, to the company the actual changes that happen. I mean, it's just been been outstanding. So we're really excited to keep this going. Well, I think that's one of the the, a key difference now is just that we're we're using this technology. We have it available as inter lab. We're taking variables out even that they'll see in their production environment. So if you're looking at it for a manual application, we're not gonna disrupt your line. We're not gonna disrupt to take time off from people and shut things down to be able to test and try things out. We're gonna take the exact stuff that you have. We're gonna bring it in our lab. We'll run it with the robot, and we'll show you exactly what it is. The science speaks for itself, and then we can then bring it to your facility. And what's really neat about your team is is that, the the teaching and the learning side that you give our customers is fantastic. You teach them how to use it and to be able to dial dial it in and be able to fine tune the system. It it is a very simple system in terms of implementation of bringing it into your line, but dialing it in is a science. And you guys got, decades of experience, and we put that together with our application and production experience in our test lab, and we can do some really cool things. Derek, you're actually making it, very simple because you're putting the whole project together on-site. I mean, we've worked with robotics in the liquid and the powder end, and somebody has to buy a robot. And they okay. They bought a robot. And then they have to hire somebody to come in and try to get it set up for their system on-site in the production environment. And you're putting the package together, and if it's got a polyfluid on it, that's already done as well. And, I mean, it's just tremendous. I mean, we haven't been working together all that year, but, I mean, you you ran through, I think, four installations with us in November and December. And I was on the I was on the odds bet that you there's no way you can install these four robots around the holidays, get them done. Of course, Chris was up there, my guy, helping you with the polyfluid implementation and training, and they all went extremely smooth. Like the story, Chris came back and told me the one guy in Philadelphia, the next day, he ran in and hugged the polyfluid unit. So That was an interesting one because we did we did a double install for them. We did a robotic installation on one of their systems, and then we they they have multiple systems. We're starting with one, and so we wanna get this one done, and then we wanna look at our next facility to move the next facility. And and they went through, seen our stuff. They went through our lab, bought the the polyfluid system to be able to help eliminate variables in their robotic application. They're getting that ready, and he called up actually afterwards, and he's like, Hey, why should I wait to put that nitrogen bubbler? I said, Well, I need another one of those right now. That works all the time. I don't need a robot to get that started. And we said, Well, that's a, that's a great idea. So we started out there, one of the other facilities where we're putting our robotic application in, and we put that system in over there on on a starting on a manual application. We put it in and, they're just part of their process, going through the training. You know, it's always better. The fear of having too light makes people, like you said, put on way more than they need. You know, more is always better. And so they were seeing a reduction on just one, like a box a day, a powder. And it's a one it's a two booth. They had a two operators going, one on each side, and they were thirty five percent, like, reduction in powder manually. I think they found a sweet spot around twenty seven percent where they felt like it was just like a I mean, they they were up to forty percent down, and they could make it work. But the their sweet spot, I think, ended up at, like, twenty seven percent manually, savings on their powder. I talked to their, their main operator at the end of the day, and he said that he loved it. I mean, so it worked great. Thought it laid out better. It was it was a smoother process. He said, usually, this entire area around here is covered in powder. He said the floor is clean. I didn't we didn't even sweep it. And so, he was super excited. That got back to the owner. We were up, working on installing their system. We were adding a robotic system to a current, conveyor system they already had and integrated it into a booth that they already had. And we had had the polyfluid unit on that other, line sitting there, and the owner came up. He walked up, and he hugged hugged the the the polyfluid unit, and he rested his head on. And not just like a funny hug, like, a long hug, like, almost a little uncomfortable to some degree. And he said that he just loved that thing. So he was so he was so excited, and that was, that was really, really fun to see. It's also important to know that, I mean, you know, in the powder industry, you have this thing called recycle where the booth is set up so when the powder hits the floor or gets sucked by the filter that, they recycle it back into the mix. And so powder booth manufacturers, will say you got you know, don't worry about it. You got ninety five percent recovery. You're you know, it doesn't matter if it doesn't go on, and that's that's total fallacy. With powder, first pass transfer efficiency is critical. Actually, there's some very technical ideas of what the polyfluid is doing, but the nitrogen, basically, it increases the resistivity of the powder. In other words, it's able to hold the charge longer. It just picks up a better charge. By holding the charge longer, that's how it gets to the product and stays on there without falling off. If you have a a lot of places because of color changes and things don't chain don't have recycle boost, they're probably fifty percent efficient. They put in a a ninety nine or ninety five percent recycle booth, and maybe they go to sixty five. They don't go to ninety five. But lots of times people get sloppy with that because they think it's getting recycled anyway. When the powder gets shot out, it's like a snowflake. And when it's when it's shot out, especially at the higher pressures of compressed air, it gets knocked on the floor and sucked in, swept in, whatever, refiltered. It's damaged. And, if that wasn't the case, you could just take a box of recycled powder and spray a product with it, and and it it simply doesn't work. Well, that's one of the things that concerns us as a integrator and working with automation, and we look at using a robot now, is that now you have another variable. I know we could probably have a long debate if we brought some more powder people in or other equipment powder people in, but when you have a variable that's changing, if your powder snowflake is being damaged and that's changing, so your virgin to recycle powder, if that's not always gonna be consistent, or you train your program on more virgin powder and you run that with a robot, your transfer efficiency could be hurt by doing that as well. So if we can go to a polyfluid unit and increase that transfer efficiency on the first pass and be able to keep that more consistent, you're gonna have a better application and better quality. Even in one of the facilities we went, they didn't have time to not have first pass transfer efficiency. Or one company had sixty applicators that they go through on each of their shifts, and every one of them powder coats differently. Some have good techniques, some have bad technique. And so using the same gun, they're getting different results. And so they needed a way to build a to be able to create in a manual application to start, and we're moving to the robot very similar to the one in Pennsylvania. They need to be able to create a a more magic wand. We they had to be able to find a way to get better transfer efficiency with less passes because they didn't have the time because their line density and their speed was so high that they needed to be able to get it with less passes and they needed to make sure we could overcome Faraday effect and get better transfer efficiencies so they can move on to the next part. Otherwise, they couldn't handle what was coming at them. Depending on the application, many, many booths will have, maybe they have ten, fifteen, twenty automated guns, but they'll have what they call the manual reinforcement guide. Lots of times, there's one in the front of the booth, one in the back, sometimes one in the front, two in the back, to cover the difficult areas that, the Faraday effect, which is the the difficulty caused by the charge of the powder to get into corners and angles. And, when they're able to hook it up with a polyfluid and get it optimized, they're able to minimize or eliminate those, Faraday issues. And then lots of times that lets them eliminate one or both of the, manual reinforcement enforcement people as well, which is another tremendous benefit. One other key point is the compressed air that you talk about. I would say the only thing consistent about compressed air is it's not consistent. That it is changing throughout the day, throughout the time of year. And then when you add moisture into the system with a powder, there's nothing worse than adding moisture in and the different levels of moisture in each powders throughout the year, just from where they're storing it to when they're using it or where they put it in their hopper, they're pulling it from the box. That's also changing. And and you're adding moisture in there and on your lines, that's like clogging your arteries. That's like eating too many cheeseburgers because you're putting that in there and you're starting to change what you have. So you're talking about your flow and your stuff going through there. And also you're now you're getting or clogging your tips. When you're manual, you know, you can just brush it off on your shoulder and keep going. But now you have a robotic or you have an automated or you have some oscillating guns and you get a clogged tip. That's a big problem. So now that's changing. Also, you just your their flow is changing without with a different moisture level. So when you see that being put there, when you chill that powder to, twenty seven degrees and you're using the nitrogen who does not hold any moisture and you keep that churning in in the fluidized bed, that also changes. You know, Brad, our application specialist, he was blown away the first time that he used it and he switched, the hopper to the nitrogen. And actually, the bed raised quite a bit. I don't know. It's like twenty, thirty percent higher just because when it fluidized, it fluidized some smoother. You're also then you're ionizing inside of the hopper. So, like, you have some slight polarization of the molecules as you're running it through the system. So it's also creating a better flow because of that. So your clumping goes away completely. And one one other really unique thing, what what I found is that even can you can can you evaporate moisture that's in your powder that you're bringing in there in the bed? Like, a fourth of July weekend this last year, we, we turned our system off in the hopper, and it was fourth of July in South Dakota. It is. We got, mosquitoes and and humidity. That's the things that we are really good at out here. But, after a three day weekend, we came back, and our and our, hopper, our powder turned to a brick because it got so much humidity in there. It was solid. And, we turned the poly fluid unit on, within, I don't know, it was a couple hours or something. We're completely fluidized. It was completely dehydrated and ready to go, which was really cool. Yeah. The the chilled nitrogen is is critical. Just say, I mean, so a lot of times when we do a test, and we'll hook up and optimize for the Nitrotherm or the polyfluid when we first hook it up, we'll have a certain pressure. But that's because the arteries, like you say, the lines that go from the fluidizer to the gun have built up a lot of, clogging in there, reducing the actual idea of the line. And so after a day or two, they have we have to go back and drop the pressures more because it does clean out the lines. And the fluidizer definitely runs you know, if you got somebody with twenty or thirty fluidizers and they're, they're we're probably gonna cut down the the atomizing air that's required to fluidize by about thirty thirty to forty percent, which really adds up when you have a lot of fluidizers running. And it does. It definitely fluidizes better, carries to the lines better, which is the reason you're allowed to keep the you're able to keep the atomizing pressure lower. The lower it is, the slower the powder crosses the corona, picks up a better charge, and it holds the charge longer. And it's just three things put together that really optimize, powder operations. And powder coating is is is growing leaps and bounds over liquid because of the, you know, the the VOC issue is solved with powder. One of our neat thing we heard from one of the customers that, we we interviewed and talked to, Bill, you and I, was that they had put them on, they had, like, sixty some guns, Venturi guns, and they put the the polyfluid units on them. And they were able to reduce so much of their flows, control their oscillating guns, got rid of the clogging. But then the interesting thing I never really thought about is that he said all the savings that they got after that. So after you're able to control these settings, now you reduce the flow so that you're getting better transfer efficiencies. So they're able to reduce their booth temperature or their booth, draw on their on their fans, or reduce the booth draw on the fans. And then they went to the next step to see what what are the next they had a couple other examples, I think, of things that they're able to have savings on that they were calculating the electricity that they're saving, the the different compressed air cost money, so they're able to reduce their compressed air that they're using. And so there was, numerous other, soft savings that, added up as well. Well, one of the big savings though is the the consumables. You know, the powder gun is five thousand dollars for some reason anyway. I don't know. But, Hey. We want these equipment guys to still like us, Bill, when we're done here. So They have tips and they have coronas in there, and the consumables is a very big business. There's also filters in the in in the little dense phase pumps, little filters, and it's amazing the cost of those. Well, the one client you're talking about, the, vendor actually came back and thought that they had lost the business because their consumables, they buy to keep their seventy guns running, was half of what it was last year. I mean and and that's a tremendous savings. I mean, when you can when you can start saving, replacing the tips and and the items like that, it makes a huge difference. And we can't prove that on a short term test. I mean, we tell them about it, but, basically, we go in and we hook up the system, and we try to measure the easiest thing for us to measure is powder savings, and and we optimize their guns and we measure that. But, usually, it's not long before somebody in QC comes up and says, wow. What happened? You know, our our rejections are gone or our DOI is better or whatever. Our film build is more consistent. It doesn't take long to figure that out, and they start putting the the cost savings to that. Yeah. It's it's a it's a very exciting new technology, in in a wide open market out there. And we're we're probably doing actually, we're probably doing three to one pow powder demos now compared to liquid. Hell, that's why nobody knows about it. It's the best kept secret because Right. Because the the why? You mean, I don't know if we covered this earlier, but then why aren't people hearing about us? Because, the equipment companies, which are awesome in the powder, they have great powder, great equipment, but it's just a way to to make make them all do work better. You're optimizing the powders. You're optimizing the equipment to be able to do more. So it's supercharging everything. Right? Right. And and we don't have we don't sell guns. We don't sell you know, we're not changing their system. They don't have to buy a new system. They have to buy a new booth. They don't have to do anything. We're gonna go hook up to their existing system, into their existing compressor line, tie into their fluidizer, turn it on, and they're gonna start enjoying the benefits. It's not like they gotta buy a new booth or eight new guns or or change anything. It's just the system, and the savings are tremendous. That return on investment is easily on manual applications, sometimes four months or less. On automated applications, they can be that way if they're extremely efficient. It's still usually under a year just on powder savings, let alone rejection rate or increasing the speed of production or any of those items or consumables. And we're taking that in our lab with our customers now. And a lot of these installations that we're talking about that we're doing together, we tell them, what what are you running? We've partnered with every major equipment company in North America, and we have their equipment in our lab. So you got Nordson? Great. Well, which what kind? You got a Venturi high def pump. You've got, GEMA. You got Parker IONIX. And, I wanna make sure I say them also, and I don't miss one. Wagner. Wagner. And Wagner. Which one do you got in there? We'll put it on there. We'll run. We they wanna say we can use the powder we have or they can send us their powder. We'll run it. We'll get the mill build that they that they're looking for. And then we switch over to the poly fluid unit, and we run the exact same program with the robot, and we run the exact same program. And when we run that program, it's usually, like, three, four times what it was before. So when we start dialing it back, dialing them back till we get to the same the same build. We do the test. We show the the the powder savings to be able to get to the same, desired thickness that they're looking for, and then they can do the math. How much powder to use? Here's the percent the reduction to run the same part on the program, and then you do the math, and there it is. And so that's how, we've been able to help show our customers without impacting their operation. And then, we then bring it in there and let them try it out and then go put it in there and let them start doing better. Good stuff. Alright, guys. We have had such a, a wide ranging and in-depth conversation so far that it's hard to really put a bow on it. But if you had to maybe bullet point out a couple of things as we close-up our conversation today on Polyfluid, What sorts of things do you want people to be sure to walk away with and know as they leave the podcast today? Give us some bullet points. Bill, let me kick it to you first. The polyfluid's a new technology that absolutely revolutionizes, a lot of the powder applications and the process that are used in there. Putting that together with, Degrees so they have, a method as they start to, use robots and and be able to buy a system that already has it all put together in one, with an installation team that's the same with us and with them is is a very unique opportunity, and we've had, tremendous success with it and really looking forward to a great year with the Geese this year. And I would say that this is bar none the simplest piece of equipment I've ever put into our facility ever. We plugged it in. Once we're set up, it's just goes. And, the savings are are huge. The quality, increases are phenomenal. It can be used on a manual. It can be used on robotic. And when when we bring those together and we bring the application experiences of our production, team along with CDTs and bills, it does create this an an awesome, powerful, dynamic solution that, we really think hits, on all sectors for our customers. Well, Derek and Bill, thank you guys so much for for coming on the podcast today and telling a little bit more about Polyfluid and introducing this to, to so many people, this new technology. And, Derek, you said that that maybe it was a secret, but the the secret might be out, and more people might know now. But, That's good. That is good. That is good. Derek and Bill, thank you guys so much for joining us here on this episode of Manufacturing a Stronger Standard. Thanks a lot, Tyler, and thanks for joining us, Bill. You bet. Good talking to you. Well, it's been fantastic having everybody, join us for this episode of the podcast. Of course, we have previous episodes of the show. So if you've missed any of those, make sure to go back and listen, to all of those episodes and get your thought leadership in the world of manufacturing and finishing from Degist. And, of course, subscribe to the podcast, either on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or bookmark the Degist website to make sure you stay up to date with the latest in terms of thought leadership in the world of manufacturing and finishing. And we'll be back soon with more episodes of the podcast. But until then, I've been your host today, Tyler Kern. Thanks for listening.