The Detonation Gun is a manufacturing tool, and the capital cost to buy this tool is only a fraction of the Cost of Ownership, which includes a much broader range of expense, for evaluation.
For regular manufacturing (not R&D), the cost of ownership will include:
- The initial cost
- The cost to operate the tool:
- Gases
- electricity
- water
- spare parts
e. cost of service warranty
f. tool throughput
- coefficient of powder use
- reliability (% uptime and impact on production)
- personnel cost - number of operators needed
3. Product Quality - (a very important consideration). Coating failures in the field (an aircraft engine, for example) are extremely costly.
For example: if you run a 3 million dollar tool, and it costs you 1 million per year in spare parts and causes a 30% yield loss, this tool can be much more expensive than a 7 million dollar tool with a 2% yield loss, and lower cost of consumables. A model, specific to your operation, must be used to take these factors into account. A decision based on only the initial capital investment, is not complete.
Overall, Detonation Gun use is extremely COST EFFECTIVE, when compared to HVOF and plasma. It enables you to save millions of dollars, when used in large-scale manufacturing. It offers the highest quality coating, and these are the reasons why competitors use their D-guns as the major process for 70% of their spray work, Low Cost & Highest Quality.
Summary of Reasons for Cost Efficiency:
-Very low amounts of gases used - for the same amount of powder sprayed - Depending on the system being compared, the Detonation Gun uses about 10 times less gas
-Low amount of electrical energy consumed - The Detonation Gun consumes 100 Watts, just enough to create a spark, instead of thousands of watts for plasma.
-Low amount of cooling water - regular tap water can be used. No heat exchangers, booster pumps, or water chillers are needed.
-Very high uptime, very low downtime: there is no need to replace supersonic nozzles, no excessive heating of barrel; Uptime can be as high as 97%, with 3% for maintenance work.
- We provide a 1-year warranty on major parts
- The Detonation Gun System is very easy to maintain
-The Excellent quality of Detonation Gun Coatings is well known, and can be proven by spraying and testing substrates.
In addition, the Detonation Gun process is capable of handling jobs that few other processes can do; such as, spraying substrates at very low temperatures.
Example: You are spraying a very expensive ($5 million dollar), diesel engine shaft, used in a tanker ship. If you are not very careful with HVOF, the shaft may become too hot, causing thermal stress and warpage - the shaft will warp and become scrap. A $5 million dollar loss will have been created, due to the inefficient use of a $100 thousand dollar spray process! With mission critical applications, you must be certain that the processes are perfect for the job.