Irish moulding company installs new dry cooling system as it sets sights on expansion

A precision moulding company based in County Sligo, Ireland, has installed a new dry cooler and reservoir system to improve operational efficiencies as it looks to expand.

Tool & Gauge, one of Ireland's original tool and mould-making, precision engineering and moulding companies, says the new Frigosystem DCMS 250 dry cooler and reservoir is improving the cooling water supply to its injection moulding machines, as well as freeing up internal space.

“We needed to improve the cooling water supply to the existing moulding machines, remove several internal chillers and provide room for expansion, reduce our operating costs and have the system protect itself in the event of frost during shut downs,” explained Gerry Rafter, Co Owner and Director at Tool & Gauge.

Supplied by UK distributor, Intellicare, the Frigosystem DCMS 250 is mounted vertically at Tool & Gauge’s site to aid air flow. The cooler has six independently controlled fans with 250 kW of cooling capacity and incorporates a programme that alternates the duty of the fans so that each will operate for the same number of working hours.

In addition to the cooler, Intellicare also supplied a 1000-litre, fully insulated reservoir connected to the dry cooler by a recycle pump. To meet the company’s request to free up space and allow for future expansion, the whole system, including reservoir, allows for the addition of a second dry cooler to increase cooling capacity to the mould shop when additional process machines are added.

A pair of process circuit pumps circulate water from the reservoir around the factory cooling water circuit with the pumps automatically operated; one running and one in standby. Pump changeover is dictated by the programme controller which would also switch on the standby pump in the unlikely event of a malfunction with the duty pump.

Sized to cater for the existing injection moulding machines on site at Tool & Gauge, which include 720 & 800 tonne machines, the cooling system employs a low temperature activation circuit that switches on both the process and recycle pumps when the ambient temperature drops below a predetermined safe level. This, Intellicare says, safeguards the system, which is operated without glycol.

Rafter says he is pleased with the results of the new installation. “The dry cooler and reservoir installed by Intelicare ticks all the boxes,” he continued. “At the rate of expansion we are experiencing due to customer orders, it will not be long before the new dry cooler has a twin.”