A Clean DPF in Only 3 Hours

By: Robert Goodwin

Video Transcript

Today, we want to do a little educational video and will be speaking about our FH2 emissions filter cleaning machine.

So, the process of the filter cleaning starts off really with a little bit of bench work. The filter comes in, we look at it visually, look to see if there’s a visual crack, if there is a separation of the cordierite, which is what this is called in here to the wall or the cavity or the canister, if you want to call it the filter. We make sure that there’s no bends or broken areas where the gasket has to go and the v-clamp has to go when it’s reassembled, make sure there’s no damage there and then we do what we call a pin test, which we measure. Put this down in the dirty filter to measure, to make sure that we that we have an idea of what we have, where the filter actually has the contaminant in it, whether it’s a quarter full, half full or plugged and often when it’s plugged, it’s blacker than pitch here and a baby could realize that the thing is plugged.

We then take this filter and put it on a stand with about, I don’t know, equal to a five-hundred-watt light and we look, in a dark room, just like the old days of photos if you will and we looked down through the filter to look to see if we can see any light, bright light coming through. That could mean that there’s a burn in it, there’s a hot spot in it, there’s a crack somewhere down in it, which is allowing the light to transfer through and that being said, it’s a go or no goal as a as a pass when everything is finished and the product’s ready to go out the door.

So now we’re going to take a look at how the machine works in very general terms. So, you get a good understanding in a general way and with that, we’ll start over here with the electronics. This is the brain of how everything works through the machine. We have a method of record keeping of both how the filter is first tested when it goes in, the machine gives us some specifications of what we’re dealing with as a dirty filter, maybe a plugged or block filter even and after the machine goes through its cycle of everything, it does some of this process yet again and gives a finished product specification, basically tells us what we start with and what we end with and we’re hoping that we achieve and get better than ninety eight percent clean.

So, with that, I’m going to start by opening the doors here and we’ll have a look inside of how, what’s in the machine, what it does and how it works. OK. So, as you can see, the machine is fairly simple in view, very basic principles of getting the filter at the right height. We employ an air operated cylinder which actually brings the hood or the bonnet down, seals off the top of the filter and allows us to do a flow check, a pressure check and allows the machine to begin to wash.

First, water comes to the head at about 50 Celsius and begins to flow under some of its own pressure and under a small, metered amount of air pressure down through the filter, washing the filter one way. Obviously, the dirty water falls to the bottom, and does this in a series of cycles in one direction, the machine automatically through the control stop.

We flip the filter over and we backwash it the opposite way. That is done in a series of times, and we have we have hot water coming through a hot water pipe as we show here, and we have air pressure coming through another hose and the two together work in the washing cycle. We use the hot air hose in the drying cycle, which is at the end of the process. As a part of the operation of the machine, there are some pretty high-tech water filters that are employed to maintain a level of quality of washing fluid. They are the nucleus of how we can maintain a standard and level of quality of washing water. Temperature obviously is affected by what’s in the water, and it also allows us an opportunity to meter the detergent that’s being used.

So, we’ve kind of did a walk around to the FH2 aqua filter cleaning machine. What’s the benefit to the customer? The benefit to the customer is high level of cleanliness in the finished product and when I say that. I am talking higher than 98 percent clean. Number two, a quick turnaround in time, three hours in the cleaning process generally, start to finish. Now that is by appointment.  We should be able, without any complication or anything unforeseen, be able to get this filter back out the door in three hours. That’s great for people in the local area. That’s great for us in our shop and that’s great for anybody who wants to bring their filter to us within sensible driving distance. It is about a two-day service if it has to come from an extreme point. Southern Nova Scotia, Cape Breton, the northern tip of PEI, northern New Brunswick, or any location in New England, for that matter. As long as we have it here three hours later, we should have it packed and ready to go back out the door in any means in which it gets to us.

We thank you for your time for watching this video. If you need more information on this, please contact any of our locations, outside sales staff, and we’d be glad to fill you in on a question that may not have been answered in this video. We thank you for your time and appreciate it. Thank you very much.