The solution? The Omega 6900 tunnel dryer was created to alleviate this bottleneck.

Tunnel Dryers were originally manufactured by Omegasonics for disaster restoration cleaning purposes.  However, building upon the initial success found in the restoration market, numerous other industrial applications are continuously being discovered for aiding in parts drying. Countless ways of combining ultrasonic washers and tunnel dryers are being implemented to improve overall cleaning process efficiencies, saving you time, labor, money.  And in the highly competitive contents restoration industry, contractors are looking for any edge they can get.

After extensive research, development, and field-testing, Omegasonics has developed a tunnel drying unit that allows for washed parts to be dried instantly without much effort from the operator. As an example, our dryers use guillotine doors, locking in heat and airflow necessary to properly dry parts while maintaining energy efficient protocols.

Alternative drying methods from other manufacturers include separate ovens which have no airflow, centrifugal dryers that can’t be used on sensitive parts due to mechanical damage, or hand held dryers which are extremely slow. Using these other methods can increase your drying times, thus costing you money due to increased production costs.

Tunnel dryers can be applied in both industrial and restoration settings. The key is getting help with the application from a knowledgeable ultrasonic cleaning supplier who can provide advice on maximizing your efficiency so that more green goes into your pocket.

An assembly-line ultrasonic contents restoration processing system allows a staff of 3-4 technicians to increase production by 500%. Disaster restoration companies usually clean fire, smoke, and water damaged contents manually. The ultrasonic process does a more thorough job of cleaning. Contents restoration companies recover more contents for homeowners. Insurance companies save millions of dollars in total loss claims. Restoration companies are more profitable due to increased efficiency.

With today’s technology, using an ultrasonic cleaning machine is the ONLY way to reduce cleaning costs, improve cleaning time/effectiveness and reduce the number of cash outs on highly damaged items.

After a disaster has struck, such as a residential home fire, the insurance company and homeowner work together to find a suitable restoration company. Insurance professionals are now only choosing restoration companies that use modern ultrasonic equipment because of their ability to quickly clean fire damaged contents and restore them to pre-loss condition.

Some of these items may be impossible to restore by hand. Cleaning a box of contents by hand would normally take about hour for an experienced contents cleaner. Inside a typical box, you may find everyday items such as statues, fine china, a T.V. remote, etc… The cleaning technician would use specialized brushes and sponges to reach every crack in and around the item. This process is often long, tedious, and expensive.

In one hour, a team of workers single worker can clean an average of 10-12 of these boxes using ultrasonic equipment. Ultrasound reaches those hard to get nooks and crannies in a fraction of the time, allowing a worker to use their time more effectively on other projects. Because of the extreme difference in cleaning time, insurance companies now pay a lot less to restore a home filled with damaged items. If you are a restoration company not using the latest in ultrasonic technology, you simply cannot afford to stay in the dark ages of inefficiency and hand cleaning.

Cleaning firearms is a lot easier with ultrasonic cleaning than cleaning them the manual way.

Obviously remove all bullets and drop into an ultrasonic tank with a mixture of 4-6 ounces of OmegaBlue per gallon of water. Using De-Ionized, Distilled or Reverse Osmosis water will give you better cleaning action. Heat the bath to 120˚F.

Let the components soak for approximately 5 minutes. Activate the sound waves to remove the balance of the residue – 1 to 5 minutes. If you have any wood stock, reduce the exposure in water to less than 2 minutes total. Wood and water don’t mix well for extended periods of time. Use a green 3M pad to spot clean if necessary.

Remove items and rinse in warm, free flowing water and blow off excess moisture using compressed air. Place the metal components into an indirect cleaning pan (metal basket-no holes) filled with a 10% mixture of Omega Rust Protectant and water. The indirect cleaning pan is placed in the ultrasonic tank in a double boiler fashion set-up. Run the ultrasound for 1 minute to penetrate all areas.

Remove the components and blow off excess moisture again with compressed air. Please do not rinse in water after the Rust Protectant step. Using a heat gun or blow dryer after this step ensures the firearms is dry. Lubricate the barrel and mechanism with a light gun oil.

Learn more at http://www.omegasonics.com/industries/gun_cleaning.shtml

Have fun target shooting.

Picture sound waves being pumped through water, generating cavitation bubbles that implode and remove dirt.

When technical folks try to explain what ultrasonic cleaning is, you get some really technical explanations that no one outside of the industry frankly understands.

The smart engineering types talk about a cavitation bubble. They talk about rarefactions and defractions of bubbles in water created by waveform patterns. They talk about frequency of the waveform affecting cavitation sizes. They might talk about the tensile strength of fluid and the need for more surfactants. They might even get sidetracked with different frequencies and their affect on cleaning. Scientific types love to talk about implosions versus explosions. It can all be pretty complicated and not really that necessary to understand.

Some will give you a simple explanation that it is a jewelry cleaner and most of us have either had jewelry or watches cleaned or heard of it. Most don’t know how it really works, but at least we have seen an ultrasonic unit in miniature form or seen its brilliant effect on a diamond ring.

The bottom line: ultrasound is analogous to putting a stereo system in water. You pump sound waves through water and magical things happen. Sound waves do create cavitation bubbles that clean. The bubbles hit the surfaces to be cleaned and implode (which is the opposite of explode). When the bubble implodes, there is a vacuum pressure release that sucks the dirt right off your parts.

What more do you really need to know or care about? Do you have any questions about ultrasonic cleaning?

Size is one of the things to consider when choosing an ultrasonic cleaner.

There are a few things to consider when buying an ultrasonic washer and none of it requires a degree in electronics engineering.

1.   SIZE MATTERS!  Pick the right tank size. Don’t buy a unit that is too small for you largest critical parts, or a unit that can’t handle the amount of parts (per load) you are putting into the unit. If you think the unit you are buying is too small before you buy it, then it will definitely be too small once you start using it. As a result, you won’t be able to see the great benefits of ultrasonic cleaning because you will put even more parts through then you ever imagined.

2.   FREQUENCY. Make sure you have the best frequency for your application. For most applications, and by most I mean 95%+ in the world, 40 kHz is the frequency for you. Unless you have a rare specification calling out 25 kHz or are doing sub-micron cleaning of sensitive electronics requiring 68 kHz and above, then look no further than 40.

3.   POWER. You need the right cleaning power for your application. Here is where it is best to discuss your application with a qualified ultrasonics company so you know what is required. Most equipment is outfitted with the correct ultrasonic power for the bulk of applications.

4.   CHEMISTRY. Though most ultrasonic applications are cleaned in a water based solution, those solutions generally require some type of soap additive. Here again it is recommended to contact a qualified ultrasonics manufacturer to discuss your specific application and get the right chemistry. There are soaps designed to remove oils and then separate out in the bath. Some applications do better with a surfactant, but chemistry is a blog post of its own.

5.   PROCESS. The process involves the dwell time of the ultrasonics, the bath temperature, the chemistry concentration. Best to get a “How to Do Process Sheet” from your favorite ultrasonic systems manufacturer.

Hopefully these tips have helped you, and as always if you’re in need of professional consultation, you can always contact us.

“We made PackOut easy to use. We greatly simplified the look and feel of the data entry, and at the same time, we made sure that important features our customers have been asking for are there,” says Torgeir Braaten, Manager of Product Management.

“We found PackOut’s screen appearance and usability to be straightforward and easy to navigate. PackOut has given us an edge over the competition in our ability to quickly and efficiently manage and report our content inventories. I would recommend this product to anyone who wants to itemize and track their content pack outs,” says Shane Bradley, President, Highland Restoration, DKC.

“Assured PackOut is only the beginning of a very productive time for Assured Software,” says Brian Cannon, President of Assured Software. “We have exciting updates and releases planned for our customers in 2012.”

Assured Software is a privately held company supplying restoration contractors with software to assist them track and manage their customers’ insurance claims during the clean up and restoration process that follows natural disasters or events such as a fire or flood at a home or business. In 1997, Assured was the first company to deliver this kind of software to the restoration industry and those products, Job Processing Program (JPP) and Pack Out Inventory (POI), are still in use today.

Omegasonics is proud to partner with Assured Software in helping bring excellence and innovation to the contents restoration industry. For more information about Assured PackOut or other types of contents management software, please call 1-877-277-9933, or visit their website at AssuredSoftware.com.

Omegasonics has made it possible for contents restoration companies to save a lot of money by creating the world’s first all-in-one ultrasonic assembly line cleaning unit.

The official name of the unit is the Omegasonics Restoration Pro RP3 System, but we’ve nicknamed it “Rolling Thunder” because it provides companies with all the power and performance of a full system, yet its size and mobility makes it perfect for on-site cleaning. The RP3 is designed to dramatically increase process efficiency and eliminate 80 percent of traditional, manual contents cleaning that is done by hand. The cleaning unit has a high-frequency speaker at the bottom of the second stage that creates sound waves. These ultrasonic sound waves create millions of bubbles and as each bubble hits a surface, it implodes, ripping the dirt off of the surface.

Rolling Thunder is perfect for:

(1) Large restoration companies that already have a full ultrasonic assembly line cleaning system and could use the additional operational flexibility it affords;

(2) Companies that have multiple locations and a central processing plant, since the unit is designed to be used in a satellite location to cut down on shipping expenses; and;

(3) Smaller businesses that have limited space, but would like to add disaster restoration to the list of services on their business profile.

If you’d like more information about the RP3 feel free to call us at (888) 726-3130  or visit the Rolling Thunder web page here.

Your biggest enemy when it comes to hardwood floors is water.

Hardwood Floors are both appealing and durable. They add that nice rustic and earthy touch to our homes. Although they can withstand a lot of wear and tear in their lifetime, hardwood floors often need care and upkeep to last. With the right products and regular upkeep, keeping your hardwood floors in pristine condition is no big deal.

Your biggest enemy when it comes to hardwood floors is water. Those wooden panels nailed to floor – believe it or not – are chunks of trees, cut to size and dried. When water begins to make it’s way into your hardwood floors, those wooden fibers begin to expand, eventually warping your wooden floor. Once this happens there’s really no going back, and you’re looking at an expensive and time-consuming floor replacement.

Wooden floors are sensitive, so it’s important to be cautious of any kind of moisture – from simple spills, abundant humidity, and water seepage from under the floor. In it’s most rudimentary form, water damage is simply the appearance of stains. There are a couple of home remedies to remove these stains. Using toothpaste or a combination of oil and cigarette ash will buff these white stains away. For a more severe stain, you may have to remove the finish on your floor.

In order to prevent small amounts of damage, be sure to coat your floors in a water-resistant finish before installing them. This will help prevent water from soaking in to the grains. You can also wax with a waterproof seal to shore up your defenses. In order to keep your floors in good shape, its ideal to re-apply water-resistant stain every 12-18 months.

If your wooden floors are suffering from major water damage, many professional cleaning services such as Service Master Solutions offer special drying services that can greatly reduce water damage to floors.

“These engines have to go out like they’re brand-new every time,” says owner Adam Wik. His racing team clients expect a high quality of workmanship because the demands of off-road racing pack oil and carbon deep into engine parts. His team soon gained a very good reputation in the industry. However, Adam was faced with a problem. He used a solvent recycling service that came to his shop and exchanged his multi-gallon drums on a regular basis, and combined with hot water spray tanks, his process for cleaning engines all adding up to wasted time, additional manual labor, and costly chemicals.

Adam learned about the benefits of ultrasonic cleaning and began doing research. “I looked into a few manufacturers but I was impressed with Omegasonics’ reputation. They stood out,” said Adam. “They have a great machine and were real easy to deal with.” After a hands-on session with Omegasonics products at a tradeshow, Adam purchased the Omegasonics Super Pro with a 45 gallon capacity and 4000 watts of ultrasonic power. For his cleaning solution, he chose OmegaClean, an Omega Chemistry product that removes oil, carbon, and contaminants from a variety of metals. OmegaClean’s buffers protect aluminum finishes and its silicates guard against flash rusting.

“Anything you want to get clean ... it goes in that tank.” Adam Wik, Owner, Wik's Racing

Adam had a long list of difficult, dirty parts destined for his Omegasonics. Every carburetor went into the bath, along with pistons, crankshafts, rods and oil lines. “There’s nothing like it for fine cleaning,” Adam attested. “It gets into places you can’t see.” Foreign material washes out of ring lands and carbon deposits lift off of piston tops. Overall shop productivity has improved with Omegasonics. As an example, Adam estimates one hour in labor savings when cleaning a piston set. “Anything you want clean … it goes in that tank,” he said.

The news about the cleaning power of Omegasonics has spread to other power sports racing outfits in the area. “We have teams sending us their custom oil coolers, transmission coolers and radiators,” Adam revealed. “That’s a nice piece of extra business and a vote of confidence in Wik’s Racing, thanks to Omegasonics.”