Labor-intensive equipment and finicky procedures are misery for most manufacturers. These delays slow you down, costing you in revenue. However, your adhesive applications can be more productive with the right hot melt drum melter.
All Uniflow hot melt drum unloaders come with a machined platen, meaning you get nearly double the heating area of any competing melter. The result is quicker heating, a better melt pool, and faster pumping, which helps productivity. Let’s see how.
HOW A HOT MELT DRUM MELTER BOOSTS PRODUCTIVITY
When it comes to working with adhesives, getting better productivity through pumping is mostly about melt rate. The quicker your machine’s platen heats the material, the faster it can be delivered.
Our Uniflow hot melt drum melters pump at least 40% faster, guaranteed.
As an example, consider a roll coating process. If it’s held back by the drum unloader’s speed, raising the pumping rate by 40% will boost production by an equal amount—an increase that also boosts profits.
There are two other ways a drum melter impacts productivity.
First, there’s how much adhesive the melter can suck out of the drum. It’s not a surprise that some machines do this better than others. A prominent example of this is a Uniflow, which leaves behind less than 0.5% of the drum’s contents. That’s much more economical than the 5-10% of your adhesive the competing machines forsake as waste.
And second? A quality drum melter will support productivity by speeding the changeover between drums.
THE CHALLENGE OF CHANGEOVERS
If changing between drums only takes a few minutes, why concern yourself with it? Some manufacturers don’t because they have a continuous operation. By pumping from tandem drums one at a time, or using adhesive storage tanks that act as a buffer, they don’t have to worry about changeovers.
However, changeovers add up to lost time for many manufacturers, specifically if they’re pumping directly to their application equipment.
For a changeover, they must stop the application and take a few key steps. Boost out the platen from the empty barrel, catch the dripping adhesive, and then release, remove, and replace the drum. After locking in the new drum, the time-consuming process starts as the hot melt drum melter gets lowered into the adhesive to perform a bleed, removing the air between the platen and the hot melt.
Uniflow drum unloaders have platens that melt adhesive faster.
Our drum change time is less than other machines because we get a bleed faster due to our machined heat transfer surface. This allows you to pump more quickly, reduce your drum change time, and, overall, increase productivity.
Our drum unloader technology has other advantages too.
WHAT TECH MAKES UNIFLOW THE BEST?
The ingenious design of a Uniflow hot melt drum melter is key to productivity. Our superior design helps our customers get a machine that’s reliable and efficient. Three main features give Uniflow (and you) the edge.
MACHINED PLATEN
Thanks to its unique platen design, a Uniflow delivers adhesive 40% faster than competing machines. Our platen also allows you to pump an astonishing 99.5% of the adhesive out of a drum where other devices only get 90-95%. For Uniflow pumps, that means fewer drum changes per pound of adhesive, so your productivity stays high.
Say you have a drum containing 440 lbs of costly PUR (polyurethane reactive) adhesive—with a Uniflow, you would change the drum after pumping 438 lbs, leaving behind just 2 lbs. Using a competitor’s machine, you’d have to change drums after 400-420 lbs, wasting the remaining 20+ pounds.
SEMI-AUTOMATIC BLEED/BOOST
With Uniflow’s semi-automatic bleed/boost option, drum changes are faster, and an operator never has to reach inside a drum to activate the bleed or boost function. The touchscreen is simple to use, and an operator can even set the drum to raise to a park position automatically. It’s an excellent enhancement to both safety and productivity.
DEPENDABLE QUALITY
You can rely on the quality of a Uniflow for fewer equipment problems and less maintenance. Take our heavy-duty gear pumps, for example—they deliver steady flow with very little maintenance. They last longer than the piston pumps competitors use and don’t require any oil.
Besides the machined platen, semi-automatic bleed/boost, and superior quality, a Uniflow hot melt drum melter offers even more features to love. The optional non-stick coating makes removing PUR adhesives easier, and remote monitoring means we can help you stay on top of your production needs for maximum productivity.
Then there’s our Seg-O-Seal® system—it’s half the cost of a competitor’s platen seals, plus you can install it while the platen is still hot. Add it all up, and using a Seg-O-Seal® system can save you hours of work time.
IMPROVING HOT MELT PRODUCTION RATES
It doesn’t matter what hot melt your business chooses to pump; at IMMCO, our hot melt drum melters come with the features needed to pump faster. A Uniflow will pump any adhesive at least 40% faster, guaranteed. Discover the difference Uniflow makes.
