Friedrich Blechbearbeitung relies on FILTERCUBE by TEKA for grinding and welding

In the new production hall, the extraction unit captures and filters both dusts and fumes.

"We are the experts in sheet metal processing” - according to this motto, the company Friedrich Blechbearbeitung from Walldürn has been designing, producing and supplying shaped sheet metal parts for all industries for almost 45 years. "The market is booming. There is a great demand from customers," says Thomas Friedrich, member of the management board, who runs the family business together with his father Michael Friedrich. When it came to planning the welding and grinding stations in a new production hall, the company relied on proven TEKA technology for the extraction and opted for a flexible combined solution in which grinding dusts and welding fumes are collected and filtered together.

State-of-the-art technology for new production hall

The family-owned company from Baden-Württemberg supplies all areas of the market. On a production area of 14,000 m², a wide range of products is manufactured, from large welded assemblies for mechanical engineering to smaller, filigree components for the electrical industry. In the new 5,000 m² hall, the company relies on state-of-the-art technologies for sheet metal processing. The area for the welding and grinding shop was expanded from 200 to 1,600 m². "As the parts spectrum of our customers became larger and more diverse, we decided to enlarge and expand these areas and equip them using the most modern aspects," says Thomas Friedrich. During planning and design, the company paid great attention to the issue of occupational safety: "We place a lot of emphasis on a safe and clean workplace. Only in this way can we also provide a high standard of quality and offer our total of 65 employees a motivating and tidy workplace," assures the management. 

Maximum flexibility is a must

Mainly sheet metal made of steel and stainless steel is processed there in single-shift operation, such as machine cladding, frames, fixtures and much more. The components vary from the size of a classic matchbox to a large frame for robots. Therefore, the order of the day was flexibility - both in terms of the design of the welding and grinding stations and the associated extraction technology, which the company TEKA Absaug- und Entsorgungstechnologie planned and implemented in close cooperation with its long-standing trading partner Martin Kratzer Schweiss- und Industriebedarf GmbH from Faulbach. The latter was the contact person for all questions of the customer on site and also carried out the complete installation.

Since the Walldürn-based company had great experience with an existing extraction system from TEKA for several welding fume workplaces, they decided to install an additional FILTERCUBE cartridge filter unit with 7.5 kW power and a small footprint (800 mm width by 800 mm depth and 3010 mm height), including a spark pre-separator, Thomas Friedrich explains further. "The FILTERCUBE is our all-rounder with W3 certification, which can cope with almost all tasks in the field of filtration of welding fumes and grinding dusts. The great advantage of the combined solution installed here is that we can discharge and filter the air containing particles at the two welding tables and from the double grinding cabin via a common pipe," explains TEKA field service representative Michael Kneuer. 

Protection for employees compliant with accident insurance institutions

Especially dry grinding often leads to intensive dust formation. In order to be able to collect it reliably and energy-efficiently, large-area rear wall extraction units (each 1500 mm wide by 800 mm high) with dust collecting tanks are installed at the rear of the double sanding cabin (4500 x 850 mm left chamber and 3000 x 850 mm right chamber), in which heavy particles are disposed of directly. In this way, even the enormous quantities of pollutants produced during the processing of large components can be efficiently removed to effectively protect employees and keep surfaces clean. Maximum flexibility is also ensured at the two welding tables, where the air containing pollutants is collected directly at the point of origin via extraction arms in compliance with regulations of the accident insurance institutions. Particularly on the modern lifting table, the extraction arm equipped with a wall bracket, can be conveniently moved over a length of 7 metres to any area to be worked on and the smoke can be captured with accuracy. 

Via the pipeline, the air containing particles is first led to a spark pre-separator, where heavy and still glowing particles fall into a water bath and are extinguished. The stationary cartridge filter unit with energy-saving frequency converter captures the fumes and dusts and cleans the air with a separation efficiency of almost 100 percent. The particulate pollutants remain on the surface of the filter cartridges and fall into the designated container during automatic cleaning. The Easy Clean Plus filter cartridges used in the FILTERCUBE have been specially developed for the removal of dust from welding fumes and dusts. Due to their special geometry, they have a more efficient cleaning behaviour than standard cartridges and are characterised by an increased service life.  A special energetic advantage: The system is equipped with a summer/winter switch. "While the filtered warm exhaust air goes outside in summer, it is returned to the hall in winter via a blow module, which significantly reduces heating costs," says Michael Kneuer.

The investment in extraction technology paid off for Thomas Friedrich: "We are very satisfied with our extraction systems. As a result, we have clean and dust-free air in our production hall, our employees are optimally protected from particles that are harmful to their health and we save energy."