One of the world’s major producers of DVDs had experienced some problems with a cooling water system when setting up DVD production in one of its plants in the UK. The solution for the next phase of development proved to be contamination-proof ITT Lowara pumps equipped with Hydrovar, electronic speed control units – both products from the ITT Industries Group.

      Cinram is one of the world’s largest manufacturers of pre-recorded DVD, VHS video cassette, CD-Audio, CD-ROM, and audio cassettes. It was established in 1969 in Canada to manufacture pre-recorded 8-track cartridges and cassettes. As CDs began to emerge as the preferred medium of the future, Cinram opened its first compact disc manufacturing facility in 1987. It now also has facilities in the United States, Europe and Latin America (via its 50 percent ownership of Cinram LatinoAmericana). 120 million DVDs a year.
      In 1997 Cinram acquired a VHS videocassette manufacturing plant located in Ipswich, Suffolk north east of London. In 2002 it was decided to set up DVD production at the Ipswich plant. Initially, two production lines were set up. Then, about 10 months later another four were installed. “Our target is to produce 1,000 discs per hour from each of the lines,” says Kevin Steward, cleanroom engineer at the plant. “We run the lines 24 hours a day, 364 days a year, so we currently have a production capacity of over 52 million DVDs a year and in about 12 months we plan to have 14 lines, which would more than double this to over 120 million a year.

      “The first two lines were essentially a trial for larger-scale DVD production here,” Steward explains. The key element in these production lines is the machine which forms the discs from the polycarbonate raw material. The Ipswich plant has installed machines made by the world market leader in this field, the German company, Singulus. The machines contain a hot mold which needs to be kept at a constant temperature of 95 degrees Centigrade. Part of the temperature control system for these molds is the circulation of cooling water through channels in the molds.

            “The pumping set-up which was installed for the first two lines has resulted in quite a significant amount of down-time – out of 14 months of operation, total down-time has amounted to around a month. The main problem has been contamination of the water by ferrous oxide.” This can be clearly seen as a brownish discoloration in the transparent monitoring pipes on the side of the machines. The contamination caused two problems: it accumulated on the inner walls of the pipe work, reducing flow and hence cooling efficiency and, secondly, deposits also clogged the water channels in the moulds, which had to be periodically cleaned out.

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