DUST AND fume extraction specialists Extractly Ltd, along with the award-winning ‘extraction-on-demand’ Ecogate® system, were highly visible to potential customers who attended the inaugural Materials and Finishes Show, and gave visitors a double opportunity to meet the team and see the products in action.
As well as displaying equipment and meeting visitors on their own stand, Extractly also supplied, installed and maintained the dust extraction system for the show’s Demo Zone. The centrepiece of the demonstration area was a modular filter unit, powered by an 18.5 kW fan, to provide a total extraction capacity of 10,500 m3/hour. With Nordfab QF ductwork neatly connecting everything together, including a non-return valve, all dust and woodwaste was safely removed from the working machinery. Perhaps not quite as noticeable to most visitors watching the machine demonstrations, but making a big impact all the same, was the energy-saving Ecogate® technology that Extractly had included in the system.
Above and top of the page, opening day visitor interest was clear to see around Extractly’s informative stand.
Although Ecogate® was first introduced to the UK market 14 years ago, at the W10 exhibition, and despite the countless successful installations featured in the woodworking press since then, this is the first time an audience has had the opportunity to see it operating in public, under realistic working conditions. Ian Rayner, UK sales manager for Extractly & Ecogate, commented: “With MAFS providing what was, as near as practicably possible, a real working environment for the live demonstrations, it was the perfect opportunity for us to showcase Ecogate’s capabilities and versatility to a much wider audience.”
Technical director, William Keyon, was in complete agreement: “The setup at MAFS allowed us to demonstrate to everyone involved in the woodworking industry that Ecogate® technology can cut your electricity bills by at least 50%... whether you’ve got just a handful of machines, or a large factory with dozens of machines, the same formula for achieving significant savings can be applied across the board.”
Central to the Demo Zone was Extractly’s ‘Ecogate-optimised’ extraction system.
The Demo Zone at MAFS had just four operational machines but, as in the majority of manufacturing facilities, they were rarely all in operation at the same time. However, the total extraction capacity had to match the requirement of all the working machines combined, so the system was designed to extract up to 10,500 m3/hour if required. In reality, since an Ecogate® greenBOX Nxt Controller was managing the system’s operation, although extraction was fully operational throughout the demonstrations, fan speed was continually varied, in real-time, to exactly match the extraction demand.
Without Ecogate® technology optimising extraction the fan would have been running at full power during each demonstration period, consuming around 17 kW for every hour of operation, and Ian Rayner was keen to emphasise the fact that: “With Ecogate® installed, the reduction in energy usage for the working demonstrations effectively reduced the show’s carbon footprint and, an additional bonus appreciated by neighbouring exhibitors as well as the audience, the lower fan speeds meant less noise!”
See page 4 & 5 of our August/September 2024 issue on our Back Issues page.
