Solar Manufacturing Mentor® Furnace Source: Solar Manufacturing
A medical device and implant manufacturer in the Southeast USA recently received a vacuum furnace. The furnace will be used to age harden and anneal medical devices and implants.
The Model HFL-2018-2IQ Mentor® vacuum furnace by Solar Manufacturing features an all-metal insulated hot zone, a load weight capacity of up to 250 lbs., and a maximum operating temperature of 2400° F.
Dan Insogna Southeast Regional Sales Manager Solar Manufacturing (photo source: solarmfg.com)
“We were awarded the project based on our relationship with Solar Atmospheres and our quick furnace delivery,” states Dan Insogna, southeast regional sales manager at Solar Manufacturing. “Together, we delivered the Mentor® furnace along with a water system, and a custom heat treat recipe for the medical grade components being processed. Our customer was up and running with their new… furnace within a week of delivery.”
(Photo Source: BruceBlaus – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=44967235)
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Northrop Grumman Defense Systems recognized Solar Atmospheres of Western PA as a top-performing supplier in 2020 with the Outstanding Customer Service Award.
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Solar Atmospheres of Western PA achieved Nadcap AC7101/4 accreditation for their captive metallography laboratory and became an approved Boeing Process Source (D1-4426).
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Heat TreatToday is pleased to join in the announcements of growth and achievement throughout the industry by highlighting them here on our News Chatter page. Please send any information you feel may be of interest to manufacturers with in-house heat treat departments especially in the aerospace, automotive, medical, and energy sectors to editor@heattreattoday.com.
A captive heat treater in New England will receive a 10-bar gas quenching vacuum furnace. The model features high pressure gas quenching and vacuum carburizing. With temperature uniformity of ±10°F, it is consistent with AMS2750F requirements.
Jason Davidson Northeast Regional Sales Manager Solar Source: solarmfg.com
"The research and development done with our sister company, Solar Atmospheres, on the alloy selection, carburizing, and recipe process development, was instrumental to the sale of the furnace," states Jason Davidson, Northeast regional sales manager at Solar. He adds that the customer valued the additional resource that the sister company had to offer.
The furnace has a graphite insulated hot zone with a work area measuring 24” wide x 24” high x 36” deep and a load weight capacity up to 2,000 pounds. Its maximum operating temperature of 2400°F.
You can see these dimensions in the video below that the supplier, Solar Manufacturing, shared on Twitter.
Solar Manufacturing recently shipped a 10-bar gas quenching vacuum furnace to a captive heat treater in New England.
The energy storage company HI-POWER, a Holtec International and Eos Energy Storage joint venture, recently formed a five-year partnering agreement with a North American heat treat supplier to provide an energy efficient non-lithium, long duration energy storage solution using battery technology.
The new battery technology, a decade in the making, is an efficient non-lithium, long duration energy storage solution. One of the critical components within the battery system requires a “vacuum cathodic” heat treatment process. This newly developed surface heat treatment process enables the product to last 5,000 cycles for a 15-year calendar life with no subcooling or pumps required.
HI-POWER and Solar Atmospheres of Western PA engineers worked to develop the vacuum cathodic heat treatment needed to fulfill HI-POWER’s specifications. Today, Solar is thermally processing thousands of components to help HI-POWER deliver clean and reliable energy faster for the world’s needs.
"I came upon this opportunity at a trade show four years ago," said Mike Johnson, sales manager for Solar, "At that time, HI-POWER was perfecting their critical thermal cycle profiles in a small hot wall furnace in New Jersey. HI-POWER knew that someday they would need to employ a large vacuum furnace - and we had that capability."
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(photo source: Solar Atmospheres, courtesy of EOS Energy Storage)
A heat treater in Greenville, South Carolina, Solar Atmospheres, will receive a vacuum furnace from its sister company in Sellersville, Pennsylvania. The 12 foot horizontal, car bottom-loading vacuum furnace is capable of processing up to 50,000 lbs of material.
The sister company providing the furnace, Solar Manufacturing, has it painted and ready to go. Check out the video that they posted on Twitter to see preparations for the vacuum furnace’s shipment.
North American commercial heat treater installs their sixth all-metal hot zone furnace at their Souderton plant in Eastern PA. This is Solar Atmospheres' sixth all-metal hot zone furnace installation, and the fourth for their climate-controlled room.
The furnace is a new Mentor model, built by sister company Solar Manufacturing, has a working zone of 12” x 12” x 18”, and is the first of its kind. The additional furnace increases the heat treater's capacity for processing sensitive materials such as PH stainless, nickel-based superalloys, titanium, and ferritic/austenitic stainless steels, yet focuses on smaller lots and one-off items. The furnace makes it possible to reap the benefits of an all-metal furnace while minimizing the overall cost.
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Heat TreatToday is pleased to join in the announcements of growth and achievement throughout the industry by highlighting them here on our News Chatter page. Please send any information you feel may be of interest to manufacturers with in-house heat treat departments especially in the aerospace, automotive, medical, and energy sectors to editor@heattreattoday.com
Heat TreatTV pulls the best heat treat videos from the web for your viewing, and today Heat Treat TV highlights Solar Atmospheres.
As a commercial heat treater, Solar Atmospheres is dedicated to providing vacuum heat treating and brazing services of the highest possible quality and meeting the expectations of their customers. They seek to educate their customers and will design a heat treating process that fits their needs.
This video demonstrates what a commercial heat treater considers when processing parts, including explaining why a heat treater chooses some methods over others. Topics mentioned in the presentation are brazing, carburizing, and nitriding as well as post-heat treat processing, vacuum brazing, vacuum carburizing, and vacuum gas nitriding.
Click here for more information on Solar Atmospheres.
If you have a video you’d like included on Heat TreatTV, please send an email to editor@HeatTreatToday.com and include a link to the video.
Solar Atmospheres of Western PA (SAWPA) will expand their material hardening repertoire by adding vacuum oil quench (VOQ) capabilities. The decision to go with a vacuum oil quench was influenced by serious concerns for the environmental and furnace operator safety. The Safety & Health Achievement Recognition Program (SHARP) provides standards for health and safety, some of which caused Solar Atmospheres to question heat treating processes that utilize explosive endothermic gases and flammable open oil quench tanks. As a result of these concerns, Solar Manufacturing and Solar Atmospheres commenced engineering meetings in 2019 to design and build a US-manufactured, safe and quality VOQ.
Solar Atmospheres Vacuum Oil Quench Furnace (Photo source: Solar Atmospheres)
Early this week, Bob Hill, president, SAWPA, Hermitage, PA, announced that the company had purchased and will install a new 36” x 36” x 48” VOQ furnace capable of safely quenching 2,000-pound loads without carbon potential concerns. The furnace, the first of its kind manufactured by Solar Manufacturing, Sellersville, PA, will be operational in early 2021.
Additionally, SAWPA is constructing a 15,000 square foot building to make room for the VOQ furnace line. Besides the VOQ furnace, the line also includes a parts washer, two tempering furnaces, and a charge car. The building expansion will be completed mid-summer 2020 making the entire SAWPA complex 120,000 square feet under one roof.
Solar Atmospheres of Souderton, PA, has received a new, state-of-the-art vacuum gas nitriding furnace to support an increasing demand for high-value gas nitriding. The furnace was built by sister company, Solar Manufacturing.
The front-loading furnace incorporates the latest nitriding and recipe system from Solar Manufacturing. The automated control system is useful for single stage as well as two-stage (Floe) processing. All hot zone components are made completely of graphitic materials inert to the anhydrous ammonia used during the nitriding process.
