ASEPCO

Killer App: Six Deadly Sampling Sins

kat.mcdivitt — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 18:57:09 +0000

“There is no sin except stupidity.”

Oscar Wilde

Lurking in every system are potential dangers, – in this case the Six Deadly Sampling Sins (speaking of Sins – you must enter this month’s wine drawing we’re giving away a total of 27 free bottles of an amazing Zinfandel*).

Anyway, what are the Six Deadly Sins?

1. Seal failures cause by dynamic O-rings that become nicked in use – and then leak.

2. Specialized ports that may not properly fit the sample valves that require these O-rings – again leakage is a problem.

3. Product burn-on (“goop” formation) during SIP following sampling. This is caused by channels that are too narrow in the sample valve to be properly cleaned between samples.

4. Product loss due to flushing “dead legs” (or “goop”) out of the sample line – using the product as flushing agent.

5. Non-representative sampling happens when the back side of the valve is not clean at the time of the sample. Typically, the sample valve carries denatured traces of the last sample. This falls into the next sample.

6. In some cases, “dead legs” or areas of non-mixing with the tank’s contents.

Any of these sins could lead to a contaminated sample.

You can imagine the costs you’ll encounter if you can’t take consistent samples – from lost product to lost manufacturing time.

So, what can you do to avoid these deadly sins?

One way is to choose equipment that avoids these typical problems. For example, the Asepco Sample Valve gives you:

A diaphragm seal instead of o-rings – preventing leaks.
Standard 0.5″ ports with no additional seals – avoiding another potential source of leaks and preventing ‘goop’ formation.
A fully drainable design – no flushing required.
“Behind-the-seat flowpath” – allowing CIP/SIP on the back side of the valve between samples.
No dead legs – allowing all the material in the tank to be uniformly mixed.

By using this sampling valve, which has been repeatedly validated in the field, you can take consistent samples throughout your process run that will be contamination free.

This will effectively reduce your costs and may also reduce your sampling times.

To learn more check out these links:

*Improve your odds, refer a friend. For every person you refer we’ll give you an additional entry into our wine drawing
Give Us a Chance to Save You Money

Next Wine Drawing

Ready for a mid-winter break?

Click here for our April Fools Day wine drawing.ASEPCO – Thinking Ahead – Saving You Time, Saving You Money and Improving Your Products.

Phone: 800.882.3886

Email: sales@asepco.com

	Need a break? Check out our Engineering Pub
	More Info Visit Our Sampling Valve Page!

Combination Ingold Valve Assembly

paul.trunzo — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 20:52:40 +0000

Inline Valve

Inline Block Body Valve with Ingold Adapter

ASEPCO Launches New Website

kat.mcdivitt — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 18:27:19 +0000

“One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man.” Elbert Hubbard

ASEPCO is proud to announce the launch of its updated website, ASEPCO.com. The new design reflects our goals of providing great information and great service. The site brings together all of the information about all of our products so that you can easily find:

Product Overviews
Product Specifications
Product Videos
Product Photos

We also offer detailed specs and interesting stories about how the products are being used.

“The site has a fresh feel which I think appeals to a wide audience,” adds Mark Embury, ASEPCO’s Executive Vice President. ”Our goal was to build a relationship with our new customers by making the site interactive while giving our long time customers what they have come to expect.”

When overhauling the site, the designers focused on keeping it simple and easy to find new content.

Check it out!

Give Us a Chance to Save You Money

Next Wine Drawing

Ready for a mid-winter break?

Click here for our mid-winter wine drawing.ASEPCO – Thinking Ahead – Saving You Time, Saving You Money and Improving Your Products.

Phone: 800.882.3886

Email: sales@asepco.com

	Need a break? Check out our Engineering Pub
	More Info Visit Our New Website!

Diaphragm Abuse

kat.mcdivitt — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 23:04:02 +0000

“Never leave anything to chance; make sure all your crimes are premeditated.”

In the first part of two, we are going to show you how to shorten the life of your diaphragm when you really want to do it right. It’s surprisingly simple, here are the most common ways we’ve seen diaphragm life shortened (in the next newsletter we’ll show you ways to avoid these problems):

1. Change-out your diaphragm less than once a year.

If you can change out your diaphragm every 16-18 months you could save tens, maybe even a couple hundred dollars a year – if you are using a large valve. Think of the kudos you could get. (Of course, if the diaphragm fails, it might cost you tens of thousands of dollars or more.) Because this is simple to do, it can be tempting to keep using a diaphragm beyond its useful life. Think of your car tire as an analogy. You get new tires installed and the dealer tells you they will last 70,000 miles. Now let’s say you do all the right things: maintain your tire pressure, regularly rotate the tires and you don’t drive like Tony Stewart or Michael Schumacher. You reach 70,000 miles and the tires still look like they could go further. Should you tempt fate? Do you really want to find out what happens when you blow a tire at 70 mph?

2. When installing the diaphragm on an actuator don’t put it all the way on.

This is a great way to quickly destroy a diaphragm. If a diaphragm isn’t installed properly on an actuator it will wear prematurely, sometimes very prematurely. I’m sure you’ve heard the old saying, “Measure twice, cut once.” The same applies to installing a diaphragm in a valve assembly.

3. Use the diaphragm at a higher temperature then it is rated for, say using a silicone diaphragm at over 135C.

Sure, things go wrong and maybe a diaphragm is accidently exposed to an elevated temperature for a brief period and it may still work, but prolonged exposure can significantly reduce diaphragm life. Have you ever put a plastic food container in the bottom rack of the dishwasher? It doesn’t look very pretty when it comes out and it usually doesn’t work anymore.

4. Don’t ever service your pneumatic actuator.

Never servicing your pneumatic actuator may lead to a catastrophic diaphragm failure. To go back to the tire analogy, imagine putting on new tires and then never checking the air pressure and never adding air pressure when needed.

5. And my personal favorite, use your diaphragm with process fluids it can’t handle.

We’ve actually seen customers melt diaphragms with their process fluids. It can be like pouring boiling water over ice cream, sure it’s still ice cream, but it’s not the same. Now that you know some of the ways to shorten diaphragm life, wouldn’t it be nice to know how to avoid them too?

In our next installment, we’ll show you some of the ways customers like you have eliminated some of these problems.

Give Us a Chance to Save You Money

Next Wine DrawingSick of eggnog? Enjoy delicious California wine. Click here for our New Years wine drawing.

	Need a break? Check out our Engineering Pub
	More Info Learn About ASEPCO Diaphragms

Best wishes,
Mark
ASEPCO – Thinking Ahead – Saving You Time, Saving You Money and Improving Your Products.

Phone: 800.882.3886

Email: sales@asepco.com

Killer App: 1.5 Inch Inline Valve

kat.mcdivitt — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 00:32:11 +0000

“If some is good, and more is better, than too much is just enough!”

You’ve begged us for an inline valve that will fit 1.5″ applications. You wanted our easy-to-maintain valves for bigger pipes.

We listened, and now we are proud to introduce our new 1.5″ Inline Valve.

We’ve super-sized our inline valve to 1.5″ and boy is it grand!

This amazing valve offers you all the flexibility you’ll need to control your process flow:

minimizes hold-up volume
less than a minute for diaphragm swaps
180 degree install angle for full drainability
no tools for disassembly
ultra-clean design

And with an industry standard overall length of 5.5″ you’ll easily swap it with your existing old valve technology.

Get rid of dirty valves – forever!

Clean Radial Seal Design

And when it’s time to clean your system you’ll rest easy; cleaning is a snap. On every ASEPCO inline valve we use our proven, reliable shoulder seal technology that has a knife-edge static seal to prevent gaps that can harbor contaminants.

Did we mention that it takes less than a minute to change the diaphragm? Just like her little brothers, our 1.5″ valve is made up of only four parts and held together with a reliable industry-standard hygienic clamp. No nuts or bolts to slow you down. Simply remove the clamp, replace the diaphragm, and reassemble the valve. You’ll be back on your way in no time! And you won’t have to re-torque the clamp after steaming.

Give Us a Chance to Save You Money

Next Wine Drawing

Sick of eggnog? Enjoy delicious California wine. Click here for our winter holiday wine drawing.

Next Wine DrawingSick of eggnog? Enjoy delicious California wine. Click here for our New Years wine drawing.

	Need a break? Check out our Engineering Pub
	More Info Learn About ASEPCO Diaphragms

Best wishes,
Mark
ASEPCO – Thinking Ahead – Saving You Time, Saving You Money and Improving Your Products.

Phone: 800.882.3886

Email: sales@asepco.com

The Real Secret: ASEPCO’s Radial-Diaphragm Seal

kat.mcdivitt — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 00:18:21 +0000

“Beware of the little expenses; a small leak will sink a great ship.”
~ Benjamin Franklin

The basic, but finicky, weir valve seal is the bane of many engineers’ existence. While a simple technology, it’s tricky to install, prone to leaks, and often the culprit in product contamination.

The solution: the ASEPCO Radial-Diaphragm Seal. With Tom’s passing I was reminiscing about the development of the ASEPCO Radial-Diaphragm Seal back in the early 80′s. This seal was ASEPCO’s first breakthrough product to show you how we think about your challenges. We were sure that there was a need for a better tank bottom valve.

To check our hunch, we decided to focus on the outer weir seal, which is made when placing a flattened diaphragm between the valve body edge and the actuator edge.

So, we talked to end users like you. We showed a simple diagram of weir seal failure to over 800 engineers, and 97% of them recognized the problem immediately.

We listened to their stories and confirmed their challenges:

The weir valve requires that each bolt be tightened in a specific pattern (time consuming).
The tightness must be the same for each bolt or you get leaks (not so easy).
If you do it wrong, your product can leak right out onto the floor (messy).
Even when you do it perfectly, with differential pressures and time and wear, you get leaks anyway (!!!#@$).

They were frustrated, and there were no other solutions. It was just one of those things you “have to deal with.”

So we took on the weir seal challenge. We went into the R&D labs and brought some of the brightest minds in the industry together to find a creative solution. We tried many different models (I wish I had the photos to show you—some of them are pretty funny).

Finally, late one Friday night one of our inventors got an idea while watching an old movie and after a weekend in the lab, the ASEPCO Radial-Diaphragm Seal was born.

So, what is the Radial-Diaphragm Seal and how does it work? While the weir seal is basically like sticking a gasket between two pieces of metal and screwing it down, the radial seal is more like sticking your finger in a dike. Let me explain how our Radial-Diaphragm Valve works.

First, by replacing the nuts and bolts with a simple clamp, you can easily assemble the valve body, diaphragm, and actuator. This saves you time and energy, as it closes and releases easily and quickly.

Second, the diaphragm seal moves independently of the shoulder seal (the seal between the inside and outside of the valve). Using a manual or pneumatic actuator, you can easily open and close the seal. (Go here to see a video of the diaphragm in action: http://www.asepco.com/pages/videos/TankAnimation.php)

Third, the cylindrical shape of the diaphragm, when squeezed into the sealing position, holds the seal (it’s been tested to an internal water pressure of 300 psi without leakage).

Fourth, it’s rugged and easy to manage. It takes less than two minutes with a standard clamp to assemble and close an ASEPCO valve. No tools required. In fact, it’s so easy, even a caveman could do it.

Fifth, when the valve is closed, the unique CIP/SIP “behind-the-seat flow path” can be created if you add a CIP or SIP port. This flow path makes it easy to steam or clean the valve while the valve is closed. This allows for validated aseptic and sterile connections and transfers to be performed.

When we first brought the valve to market, pharmaceutical engineers were excited and a little skeptical. Most of them were still using weir-style valves for tank bottom drain valves. Over 21 years later, the majority of tank bottom valves now use a Radial-Diaphragm style design.

Continuing the evolution of valve design, we’ve taken that same radial-diaphragm technology and created a “weirless” line valve to complement our original tank valve.

You can simply drop our “inline” valve in place of any of your standard 20th century weir valves and bring your system into the 21st century.

Along the way you’ll save time and money by reducing maintenance time, improve performance with a less restrictive flow path, and simplify installation with 180 degrees of orientation.

If you haven’t been lucky enough to catch us at a show to get your hands on one of these valves, now’s your chance to see one. Email or call us today and we’ll get a demo in your hands tomorrow.

Click here for the online version of this article.

The Tale of Two Valves

kat.mcdivitt — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 00:17:22 +0000

Inventive Ways Our Customers Use Valves

“I do not think there is any thrill that can go through the human heart like that felt by the inventor as he sees some creation of the brain unfolding to success…such emotions make a man forget food, sleep, friends, love, everything.” ~ Nikola Tesla

We admit that our customers are brilliant. Often when they have a question, challenge, or design concern they call us and we figure out a solution together. But sometimes we hear about smart ways to use our technology
after the fact.

Here are two very useful applications from the field.

How Do You Re-circulate Product in The Tank?

The Challenge: Re-circulate product in the tank while maintaining CIP/SIP and avoiding pockets or dead zones.

The Situation: A solution with small quantities of particulates that must be uniformly distributed.

The Solution: The inventive engineer used two flush diaphragm tank valves. One tank valve was used as the standard tank drain. The second valve, the re-circulating tank valve, was placed near the tank knuckle (see the diagram). To start the recycle loop, the technician opened the valve and then pumped the product through piping so it reentered at the top of the tank.

Why the Radial-Diaphragm Tank Bottom Valve?

The engineer selected our Tank Bottom Valve for two reasons:

Flush Mount: The flush mount of the ASEPCO Radial-Diaphragm™ Tank Bottom Valve eliminates pockets or dead zones in the tank.
CIP/SIP: The design of our tank valve makes SIP/CIP easy. By simply adding a secondary (Sterillite™) valve to the tank outlet valve body, SIP/CIP can be performed cleanly and quickly. In addition to making SIP/CIP easy, it doesn’t add any deadleg to your system.

How Can You Avoid Foaming and Contamination?

The Challenge: Avoid foaming that would damage a sensitive protein product and avoid the dip tube that had caused contamination in the past.

The Solution: After checking his alternatives, this engineer realized the best solution was to mount two tank valves, the standard output valve, and a smaller ASEPCO tank valve closer to the knuckle of the tank.

By setting up his 10 tanks this way, he was able to fill the tank from the bottom, eliminating foaming (see the diagram)!

Here’s the flow.

First, valve B2 (at the steam port of valve B1) is opened, allowing steam to flow through the valve and piping between the tanks sterilizing it before the product transfer.

Second, the product flows from the original tank through the piping and enters this tank through valve B1. This fills the tank from the bottom, avoiding foam and a potential source of contamination!

And finally, when the process is complete, valve B3 is opened for routine draining.

Why the Radial-Diaphragm Tank Bottom Valve?

Two reasons:

Avoid contamination: The steam cleaning of the valves and piping removes most of the concern for contamination. The Radial-Diaphragm Tank Bottom Valve has a flush seat that allows for thorough steam cleaning.
Flow control: The second tank valve allows for flow control and bottom filling. This allows the technician to effectively manage the flow and make sure there is no foaming.

Have you gone “off-label” with one of our products? We’d like to hear from you.

Custom Applications

kat.mcdivitt — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 23:16:17 +0000

Bring your system into the 21st Century – AND Lower Your Costs!

You know us for our high performance standard products, but did you know, we also create custom products?

Let’s face it, these days we all have our bosses breathing down our necks about reducing cost and, of course, improving performance. It’s a challenge that isn’t always easy to overcome, but we can help make it easier for you.

This isn’t something new for us, we’ve been providing custom solutions to customers just like you for over two decades.

In fact, we’ve provided over 5000 custom solutions to help solve a variety of problems. By being able to customize our equipment to fit existing processes our customers have been able to:

Give old equipment a new life
Save money by upgrading old equipment with new components that lower maintenance costs
Improve cleanability by replacing outdated components with state-of-the-art components

Example of Money Saving Customizations

1.2 Liter Vessel Example

We recently had a customer come to us with a problem. You see he had an existing process, but needed a tank to work at a much higher pressure than his existing equipment would allow.

His current vessel would only allow him to work with pressures up to 30 psi and he needed to go to pressures up to 100 psi. He also needed full jacketing of the head and a dozen tank penetrations – all in less than 1.3 liters.

Oh, and it needed a mixer too.

After working with the customer for a couple weeks we had this concept (see image on right).

After a final meeting and a few design tweaks, we began fabrication. Less than 12 weeks later, we delivered this tank, including a custom diptube, a jacket that covered the entire head and a magnetic mixer.

What Makes Us So Flexible?

We’re a small company. All our custom manufacturing is fabricated in our building in the heart of the Silicon Valley. And because our designers, engineers and fabricators are just steps away from each other, we are able to respond quickly to your needs.

So the next time you are faced with the challenge of having to lower costs and improve performance, come to us. Not only will your boss be impressed when you are able to improve the performance of your system, but he’ll be wowed by the savings too.

Give Us a Chance to Save You Money

Next Wine Drawing

Give thanks with some delicious California wine. Click here for our giving thanks wine drawing.

Best wishes,
Mark
ASEPCO – Thinking Ahead – Saving You Time, Saving You Money and Improving Your Products.

Phone: 800.882.3886

Email: sales@asepco.com

	Need a break? Check out our Engineering Pub
	More InfoSee More Custom Fabs!

Killer App: Tangent Valve Helps You Save Money!

kat.mcdivitt — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 23:11:58 +0000

“I have a simple philosophy. Fill what’s empty. Empty what’s
full. And scratch where it itches.”
- Alice Roosevelt Longworth

Can you empty what is full? Really?

When your mixer is mounted on bottom center of your tank, you’re often forced to mount your tank bottom valve off-center. This can cause excess pooling at the bottom of the tank and in the valve itself.

Pooling wastes valuable product and creates a cleaning problem.

By mounting the ASEPCO Tangent Valve off-center, you reduce pooling in the tank and eliminate pooling in the valve. More product, cleaner process, more money in your pocket.

The Asepco Tangent Valve – Emptying is Our Business!

Our valve saves every last drop because of its tangential flowpath through the outlet.

Benefits include:

Tangential design – allows for draining through low point of the valve
The only truly flush diaphragm tank valve
Radial Seal Design – reliable seal, easily cleanable during CIP
Saves 85% of routine maintenance cost over weir valves, forever

We allow you to really empty what’s full so you can fill what is empty with less cleaning and more product!

Other valves just don’t compare

Best drainability. Best cleanability. And now best off-center valve solution! You won’t find another valve in the same league. We identified the problem of fluid pooling and eliminated it! We found another way for you to increase your yield and increase your bottom line.

Give Us a Chance to Save You Money

Next Wine Drawing

Stay cool with some delicious California wine. Click here for our giving thanks wine drawing.

Best wishes,

Mark

	Need a break?Check out our Engineering Pub
	More Info Tangential Valve

ASEPCO – Thinking Ahead – Saving You Time, Saving You Money and Improving Your Products.

Phone: 800.882.3886

Email: sales@asepco.com

Killer App: Choose The Right Mixer

kat.mcdivitt — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 23:13:37 +0000

“Fast is fine, but accuracy is everything.” – Wyatt Earp

As Mr. Earp hints, the wrong answer can be painful or worse. Imagine the cost of replacing a new mixer because it is under-performing.

Let’s look at your options for choosing the right mixer with an eye on getting the right answer.

You can guess that your new process is “sorta like” one of your existing processes, and choose the same mixer configuration. That’s real fast, but if you get the wrong answer you can end up real dead.

You can do a home-cooked analysis and build a spreadsheet that calculates a few key parameters of your new mixer based on characteristics of your process. But, when you forget to include some important data, or if there’s a bug in your spreadsheet, you can still end up dead.

You can purchase a software product, model your process, and design the right mixer. This gives you a better chance at getting a good answer. But can you afford the time to choose the right software product, and learn to use it well? Mr. Earp might warn you about being accurate but slow. And besides, this is a pretty expensive way to go.

Let ASEPCO be your hired gun!

You can be fast and accurate by allowing us to help you. We model mixers every day using an industry leading program called Visimix.

How does this help you with your problem?

It’s sorta like hiring Mr. Earp as your personal bodyguard.

We use Visimix to solve mixing problems for our customers providing them with detailed process characteristics including: time to mix, circulation time, impeller tip speed, Reynolds numbers, vortex depth.

This gives you the optimal impeller for effective mixing at the most efficient cost.

How does it work?

Fill in our easy-to-use form, telling us the key characteristics of your process. Then we crunch the numbers. We can examine a wide range of process characteristics from hydrodynamics to gas dispersion to heat transfer.

We’ll quote you the right ASEPCO mixer for your process. Visimix helps us choose the best impeller for your application. Quick, cheap, and accurate!

But that’s not all.

We’ll also send you the results from the Visimix simulation. You can use those results to verify your process.

We’re committed to having the best mixer solutions on the planet. If you don’t think we do, we want to know why. Even someone as good as Mr. Earp needs to keep his eye on the competition!

Give Us a Chance to Save You Money

Next Wine Drawing
Stay Cool with some delicious California wine. Click here for the dog days wine drawing.

	Need a break? Check out our Engineering Pub
	More Info Fill in the Visimix Form

Best wishes,
Mark
ASEPCO – Thinking Ahead – Saving You Time, Saving You Money and Improving Your Products.

Phone: 800.882.3886

Email: sales@asepco.com