Concept of operation

 

 

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​The system is simple in design, easy to fit and requires minimum maintenance. The water used for sanitizing the clusters is standard or bore hole water filtered and fed into a 10 liter header tank.



The system incorporates Dosatron - an automatic chemical dosing unit which the water is pumped through and the correct concentration of chemical is mixed in. Most installed systems have incorporated  peracetic acid. Its use results in 99,999% of pathogenic bacteria flushed from the liner.



Wash solution and compressed air is intermittently injected into the liners 30 seconds (delay could be set to a different value, if required) after take-off of the cluster. The injection is carried out via special design injectors. Injectors can be fitted to any type of milking liners as they come in 3 different sizes of 8, 10 or 12 mm. When the system is fitted there is no need to replace existing milking clusters or purchase any special liners. Each AirWash injector has a non-return valve, thus the AirWash system does not affect the milking vacuum level and stability.



AirWash system can be integrated into any brand/type of the milking machine and configured for fully automatic operation in two different ways:



1. For double-sided milking parlours, the flushing cycle starts for all the milking clusters on one side at the same time once the exit gate opens. The system starts off the exit gate switch signal.

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2. For swing over milking parlours the flushing cycle starts after milking finishes at each individual point. The AirWash control box senses "end of milking" signal from Automatic Cluster Removal (ACR) system. The AirWash control box can be connected to any existing ACR system. A manual start push button option is also available. The AirWash flushing cycle timings and water usage can be easily programmed to suit the individual needs of the farmer. As a recommended standard the system is set to perform five wash solution flushes each followed by a compressed air blast. The total cycle lasts only 20-30 seconds and requires only 400-500 ml of water.