Wikoff Yellow UVY-45-19 not pumping through the pipe?

We are having issues pumping yellow dye. There is contamination in the dye after it leaves the pump which makes us believe something in the pump (screw) is busted and chipping. The yellow dye is very viscous. The pump is believed to be damaged but the yellow ink never pumped through to begin with.

Heating the dye to thin it out and increasing the pressure only damaged the motor and hardened the dye in the piping.

Some of the things we have thought of doing to correct this issue:

1. Send the pump to the manufacturer to get it repaired

2. Our pipe lengths are relatively long. The dye that remains in the piping hardens and makes it harder for newer dye to pump through. Use two drums of yellow dye and two pipes and locate these drums as close to the roller as possible to shorten the lengths the dye has to travel.

3. Use two pumps to pump the yellow dye into a connector valve which would eventually go to the two Komori presses. Keep the pressure the same but increase flow from a second pump.

4. Modify the piping angles and diameters. All the 90 degree turns in the piping increase the shear force and make it harder to push this type of viscous material. Shortening the pipe lengths would also accomplish this.

If you need any more information on our system I can get it to help you help me. I am looking for some advice/ feedback on our ideas to fix this system. Thanks.

 

Yellow dye ?????

 

Yellow ink. We have two Komoris. Near Komori 1 we have 5 pumps of colors. Magenta, Cyan, Yellow, brown... The pumps work fine for the other inks but do not work for yellow so yellow has to be manually applied to the rollers.

 

simply change the pump
you can find a cheap used one on the market and send the bad one to be repaired as your spare pump

 

Yea I believe that is what we are going to do I am just concerned that the new pump will burn out as well if the ink is forced to pump through and doesn't. I just started an internship at this place and what I've gathered is that they have been using this system for two years and the yellow ink never worked with the pump and was always manually applied to the rollers. Everyone here (Ink supplier, our engineers and operators, and the manufacturer) has there theories and recommendations and I tried to explain some of these the best I could in the original post.

Has anyone had trouble pumping yellow ink though? I think it has something to do with its thickness and the shear force during all the 90 degree turns we are pumping through. I would think shortening the piping run would remedy this. From what I hear the ink also hardens slightly under high temperatures and pressures.

Do you think using two pumps or redesigning the piping layout and shortening the piping distance are logical solutions?

I joined this forum to get some outside advice because everyone here simply wants to do whatever is easier for them and not what is best for the company. Thanks for replying guys.

 

I have got pumps umping inks (all proccess colors) at one of my customer to a pipe legnth of oevr 100 meters with no problems.

If the pump is good i see no reason for problems.
check the pump spec for pressure and calculate if what you have in place is right for it

 

Equivalent pipe length method works for any fluid right? I want to determine the head loss in the system.

 

No no no

you must calculate distance , pipe diameter & ink viscosity , honey is thicker than water....