air makeup unit Archives : Paint-Booths.com

Save Time and Money with These Top Spray Booth Accessories

If you want to get the maximum use out of your paint booth, consider investing in some upgrades. Accessories such as all-in-one control panels, LED lights, and AMUs improve your booth’s efficiency and performance, and special coatings simplify cleaning. Learn more about how to save money with the right accessories for your spray booth.

Mixing Rooms

It may seem easy to just store your paints, primers, glazes, and other chemicals in the corner of your shop, but keeping these things in the open presents a fire hazard. And it’s difficult to clean up accidental spills all over your shop’s floor.

With a well-built mixing booth, you have a dedicated and safe place to store your paints and stains. All of our mixing rooms are ETL-certified and compliant with NFPA standards. Built-in ventilation systems run continuously, removing the fumes and harmful particles created by mixing and storing paint and other chemicals.

Energy-Efficient LED Lights

Your paint booth probably has lights already, but built-in illumination isn’t always optimal, especially for finishing jobs that require a lot of precision. When you upgrade your booth to energy-efficient LED flat-panel lights. The LED lay-in panels are slim and easy to install, and are suitable for both heated and unheated booths. LED panels drastically reduce energy use, costing you less money on each power bill. Additionally, they last for an extremely long time and come with a five-year warranty. Our panels have up to 60,000 hours of run time, which equates to over 6 years (if you left them on 24/7). Another great benefit is that your energy company may give you a credit for upgrading to LED so the upgrade isn’t as costly as you think.

Air Makeup Units (AMU)

To keep the proper air pressure in your paint booth, you need to replace the air that gets exhausted during operation. The easiest way to do this is with an air makeup unit (AMU), which balances air pressure inside the booth by automatically providing the right amount of replacement air.

Installing an AMU is a better, more-efficient solution for air pressure management than trying to use the HVAC system to regulate the air pressure in the shop. Plus, AMUs are heated, so there are even more benefits:

Faster finish times
Temperature control for even curing
Fewer airborne particles and contaminants inside the booth

A heated AMU can be one of the most cost-effective upgrades for your paint booth.

Air Hose Storage Solutions

Air hoses that are left can be a tripping hazard. Easily keep your air lines stored in reels to your air hoses from getting tangled or tripped on during operation. Many air line reels can be installed anywhere, and come with automatic retraction systems that prevent the hose from becoming loose or unrolling.

Easy-To-Clean Coatings

To keep your spray booth functioning properly, it’s essential to clean the overspray that gets on the ceiling, walls, and floors. This can be a tedious job, but there are several accessories that can make it easier. White Out coating is a water-based spray that creates a film that covers paint booth walls, restoring a “like new” appearance even in booths with extensive overspray. The new white walls improve light quality in the booth. When the film gets covered with overspray, you can simply peel it off and respray the White Out on your booth’s interior.

It’s vital to keep the air inside the booth as clean as possible to reduce dust and debris that can ruin the quality of a finish. This adds to the life of your paint booth filters and keeps your paint booth fan clean. The Grippy Mat is a floor mat that traps dirt, dust, and overspray, reducing the chance that these particles will enter the airflow inside the booth. Our starter bundle includes a Grippy Mat floor covering, particle control solution, and an easy-to-use sprayer.

Operational controls

A paint booth control panel simplifies operation, allowing you to manage your booth’s lights, exhaust fans, and other crucial hardware from one point of contact. All of our ETL-certified spray booths come with electric control panels. If you purchase an uncertified booth model, you can upgrade to one of our ETL-listed control boxes; we have both single-phase and three-phase models.

Optimize Your Paint Booth with Key Accessories

If you want to make it easier to operate, monitor, and clean your paint booth, consider upgrading it with some accessories. We carry a wide range of top-quality options, and you can count on our team for advice about which upgrades are best for your booth and shop. If you have any questions about choosing the right lights, AMU, or control panel for your booth, contact our friendly sales team. We’ll provide expert solutions completely customized for your needs.

What is the Difference Between an AMU & an MUA?

Maintaining good indoor air quality and balanced air pressure is essential for a safe and healthy working environment in any shop. When you operate a paint booth in your shop, it can create problems with indoor air pressure and quality if you do not take precautions. This is especially true in smaller areas where the pressure changes caused by a paint booth can quickly affect the air in the entire building.

Fortunately, there are two ways to maintain good air quality and proper air pressure: providing make-up air (MUA) to the shop or adding an air makeup unit (AMU) to the paint booth. Understanding the operational differences in these solutions as well as the potential benefits can help you determine which option is right for you.

Paint Booth Operation Causes Negative Air Pressure

During paint booth operation, air is exhausted from the booth. While it is necessary to exhaust air in order to exhaust the overspray from painting, this process can quickly change the volume of air in the booth, causing negative air pressure to develop.

There are several problems that negative air pressure can cause:

A vacuum effect that pulls dirt and debris into the paint booth
Uneven curing of the finish on painted items
Poor indoor air quality
Drafts and temperature fluctuations
Suction that makes the doors and windows hard to open

To restore balanced air pressure inside the booth, air must be added back in to replace the air that is exhausted.

Make-Up Air Balances Shop Air Pressure

To make up the air pressure inside the paint booth, you need to pull in new air to replace the exhausted air. In some setups, a booth will replace exhausted air by drawing in air directly from the shop’s interior atmosphere. However, pulling the shop’s air into the booth can cause changes to the pressure of the shop at large. In a small building, normal paint booth operations can quickly lead to negative air pressure in the entire shop.

Make-up air (MUA) is intended to replace the air from the shop that is used and exhausted by the paint booth. MUA solutions sometimes function as part of the HVAC system to draw replacement air from the outside. It could also function without a HVAC system to push air into the building. This extra ventilation restores air pressure and improves the overall quality of air inside the shop.

An Air Makeup Unit Provides Additional Benefits

A more popular option is an air makeup unit (AMU) which balances air pressure and improves air quality by providing replacement air into the booth itself. An AMU is designed to provide the right amount of air into the paint booth to balance the volume of air exhausted.

Many AMU models offer the ability to heat the air for a temperature-controlled spraying environment. The heating feature allows the AMU to be put into “cure” mode. When in this mode, the paint is cured (or baked) at a very high temperature and is done in less than an hour. This feature increases the production capacity of any shop.

Providing replacement air directly into the booth eliminates negative air pressure in the shop
AMUs can reduce the amount of dust and other particles that can ruin the paint finish
Temperature-controlled air can reduce the time it takes for a finish to cure, especially in colder environments

In large shops that have more than one paint booth, installing AMUs for each booth provides more functionality than simply getting a single MUA solution for the shop itself.

Deciding Between an AMU and an MUA Solution

Paint booth operation creates air movement due to exhaust, and that air must be replaced to avoid issues caused by negative air pressure. A MUA shop solution provides replacement air to the interior of a shop, improving ventilation and reducing air pressure problems. An AMU provides air within the paint booth itself to balance the air pressure. Heated AMUs control the temperature inside the booth with warm air and can run cure cycles that ensure faster, consistent curing.

Standard Tools designs and builds the Sure-Cure AMU and MUA for these different air replacement circumstances. The units are built to a shop’s specific gas and power, CFM requirements and installation prerequisites. Although Standard Tools is a paint booth manufacturer, the Sure-Cure AMU can be built to be compatible with any brand paint booth. All of our air-replacement solutions improve the air quality and production level of a shop. Contact an expert at Standard Tools to get more information on the Sure-Cure AMU and MUA. The team can help you figure out which solution is best for your shop.

A Bigger State-Of-The-Art Air Makeup Unit

Leading North Carolina paint booth manufacturer announces the big brother to their Sure-Cure^® Air Makeup Unit Line

February 20, 2015 – GREENSBORO, N.C.—Standard Tools and Equipment Co. has been designing and manufacturing paint spray booths since 1997 and has built over 18,000 paint spray booths. In October of 2013, the company announced the release of their own air makeup unit (AMU), the Sure-Cure^® AMU Ignite, available in 10K – 14K CFM with ETL certification.

Standard Tools and Equipment began 2015 with the release of the Ignite’s big brother, the Sure-Cure^® AMU Inferno. Available in 17K – 26K CFM, it is also ETL certified and available for larger paint booths and truck booths.

Both units are designed, manufactured and sold by Standard Tools and Equipment from the Greensboro, North Carolina plant.

“The launch of the Sure-Cure AMU Ignite in 2013 was successful, we were selling units before we even announced the development. We got such positive feedback from our customers on our unit and our shipping times, that we got right to work designing the larger unit,” said Standard Tools and Equipment Co. CEO Michael Kestler. “We continue to offer products to our customers that meet our high standards of excellence at an affordable price. Our AMU line provides them a safe and reliable unit with all the bells and whistles included in the marketed price. With the addition of the Inferno unit, we can provide a unit for any size booth they may have.”

One of the gaps in the market that the company noticed was the extremely long production times in ordering an AMU. We could design, customize, build and ship a paint booth in less than 10 days but our customers were waiting months for their air makeup units, which were sourced out at the time.

After some research, Standard Tools and Equipment decided that they wanted to start developing their own units. They were determined to make their air makeup units safer and quicker … to meet the needs of their customer.

“We have built an extraordinary unit that can be built to the customer’s specifications, and shipped within just 2-3 weeks,” John Mauney, Director of Manufacturing at Standard Tools and Equipment Co. “We’re offering our customers the opportunity to be up and running quicker. We understand that they have a business to run and we want to help them do that.”

For Standard Tools and Equipment, that’s exactly how they began to make paint booths back in 1997. “We noticed a major need and as a player in the industry for many years, we already had all the right components to meet that need,” Kestler said. “We have used our experience to develop over 18,000 booths that are unsurpassed in performance and value for our customers.”

As one of the largest Paint Booth manufacturers in the United States, Standard Tools and Equipment Company pulled together everything they had learned over the last 15+ years to develop air makeup units. Safety was important as the company started to plan out how their unit would be different than others on the market. Many safety features complete this AMU, including flame failure reset, multi-service disconnect and a low-flame auto setting at the loss of power. Their units are designed to be the safest available on the market today.

For more information on the Sure-Cure AMU products, visit https://www.paint-booths.com/category/paint-booth-air-make-up-units.html

Baby Its Cold Outside!! — Air Makeup Units

A favorite song of the winter holidays is ‘Baby, Its Cold Outside’. The crooners of the 1960s like Dean Martin, Andy Williams and Ann-Margret make this a fun song to hear. The fellow in this song reminds his girl of all of the problems of a cold winter night as she keeps trying to talk herself into leaving.

As we are bracing for this “Arctic Blast” about to hit us on the East Coast, we’re thinking of all those painters that have to open the building doors when the spray booth is used … and Baby, Its Cold Inside Too!!

At Standard Tools, we make heated air makeup units that can be added to your current system. Spray booths with intake plenums (or intake canopies) can be directly ducted to our Sure-Cure AMU system. Cross-flow or open-face booths can be supplied with Sure-Cure AMU systems designed to put heated air right into the building.

The Sure-Cure direct-gas-fired units can be heated with liquid propane or natural gas.
The units are ETL-listed to USA and Canadian safety standards and are designed to provide tempered air (for spraying) and up to 160-F for curing.
When ordering your unit, there are many options about power, layout and orientation.
Systems are available from 10,000 cfm to 26,000 cfm.
We offer ducting components and wiring harnesses.

The best part is that your unit can be built to your specifications and ready to ship to your facility in just a few weeks.

Stop opening the building doors to bring in the freezing air. OSHA requires a permanent spray area to be at least 65-F. Most coatings do not work well at colder temperatures, which can lead to poor quality and poor productivity.

Visit our website or call our Sales team for more information.

Why you won’t find a variable frequency drive (VFD) on our unheated booths

We have many customers that ask us if we offer a variable frequency drive or VFD for our paint booths. The answer is simply “No” and we have a very good reason on why.

A variable frequency drive allows you to control the speed of a motor. It is also known to be called a variable speed drive, adjustable speed drive or an adjustable frequency drive. We are very familiar with the VFD because we utilize them on our Air Makeup Units (which controls the exhaust fan on our heated booths – but not the intake fan). The difference is when we control the exhaust fan on the AMU’s, your booth remains in compliance and safe to use.

The VFD can turn the speed of the motor up or down depending on the motors capabilities. Most customer’s request this so they can reduce the speed of the motor for several applications explained, but not fully known to us as a manufacturer.

The simple answer, “No”, is followed by an explanation that if you turn down the motors speed; the booth will not be in compliance with the code requirements. A certain amount of airflow is required to meet the NFPA-33 guidelines.

To explain it a little more clearly, here is what our engineer Tracy Beach has said about this subject:

Insufficient airflow:

* will lead to poor painting quality

* will cause excessive fumes

* may easily lead to a fire or explosion due to flammable fumes not being exhausted from the spray booth. This is not a matter of convenience; the spray booth must be properly exhausted or it is simply a box holding lights and explosive fumes. The ventilation performance of most spray booths designed by Standard Tools is 6-10% above the NFPA-33 and OSHA code requirements. Decreasing the airflow would be dangerous and may result in poor coating quality since the over spray would not move away from coated surfaces.

We urge our customer’s to contact the local authorities and find out what their cities requirements are prior to making a purchase of our paint booth. Whether it is the building department or fire marshal, we want them to be aware of the requirements. We also offer a paint booth permitting guide to help them along in the process.

Please contact us with any questions or concerns you may have. We are here to help guide you in the decision making process.

Air Makeup Units (AMUs) Are HUMMIN’

It’s going to be 85 in Greensboro, NC today, but cooler weather is just around the corner! How do I know that? Well, I just walked through our Sure-Cure air makeup unit (AMU) production shop, and things are hummin’. We have four units on the bench in process and several more in the queue this week. These Sure-Cure AMU’s are in big demand. ETL-certified and tested, they are among the safest units on the market today.

The Sure-Cure will provide gas-heated warm air inside your spray painting booth to speed curing time, even on the coldest days! With a guaranteed 80 degree rise over ambient air temperature, if it is 0 degrees outside it will be 80 degrees inside your booth! No more waiting hours or days for dry time. Plus you can put it into cure mode at the end of the day and go home. The unit will shut off automatically when the paint is cured.

If you have an Air Makeup Unit that is more than 10 years old you may be a candidate for a new high-efficiency Sure-Cure AMU. Many of the old style Air Makeup Unit’s contain heat exchangers that can crack over years of use. This greatly reduces the ability of the unit to heat the air to the desired temperature. It could also result in dangerous fumes being emitted into your booth or painting area!

Our units are popular because Standard Tools is committed to a 2 to 3 week turnaround in producing these units, even in the winter months. Other manufacturers take 8 to 12 weeks to ship an AMU! So get your order in today, and be ready for the cold when it gets here!

PAINT BOOTH AIR FLOW: HOW IT WORKS

During spray jobs in a paint booth, the exhaust system must draw substantial quantities of air out of the shop in order to operate. These volumes must be replenished with equal volumes of air coming into the booth.

AIR MAKE-UP (AMU) is defined as…a mechanical means of replacing air that has been exhausted out of the booth.

It’s simple…. it’s all about paint booth air flow. How much air in being put into the booth and how much is being taken out. Airflow while spraying takes the over-spray away from the paint job and out of the booth.

Air in – Air out. Air in – Air out. Air in – Air out. Air in – Air out. That’s it. With the Sure-Cure Air Makeup Unit, you control the amount of air pushed into your booth. Why would you need to push air into your booth?

NEGATIVE AND POSITIVE BOOTH PRESSURE
When the exhaust fan of the booth is turned on, it creates a “negative” air pressure in the booth cabin (taking out more air than is being put in). When there is a negative air pressure, the booth will try to suck in as much air as possible, including dirt and debris from outside the booth. THINK VACUUM CLEANERS.

To counter this “negative” pressure, an Air Makeup Unit (AMU) unit is used to supply air to replace the air being exhausted. If the AMU is designed to force more air into the booth than is exhausted…the booth is said to have “positive” air pressure. In this case, the booth has more air than outside the booth and when a door is opened, dirt and debris is pushed away from the booth. THINK STANDING IN FRONT OF A FAN. Continue reading PAINT BOOTH AIR FLOW: HOW IT WORKS

Should you replace your Air Makeup Unit? Things to consider.

So, you have a heated booth, had it for years. Does it still work? If it does, is it working like it should? Maybe it’s time to look at a new heater and take advantage of the latest technology that will not only save you time, but money as well. (Have no idea what I am talking about? Read our post here about what makeup air is).

A heater that was manufactured ten years ago will not have the same technology or controls as a new unit because there have been many advances in the last decade. (Imagine using a cell phone from 10 years ago to do what you needed today…).

Can you control the temperature? New units have digital temperature read outs for the desired and measured temperatures. This is important information that can save you money. If the outside temperature is 75 degrees, then the burner may not be required. Without the temperature reading, your painter may be turning on the heat out of habit not necessity.

Does your unit have a cure mode? If so, is the airflow reduced during the cure cycle or are you helping to heat your town and fund the gas company? New units will reduce airflow by as much as 50% to increase burner efficiency and keep the heat in the booth longer to provide more even heat flow around the product.

Timers. New units will also have timers in the cure mode so the flash, cure, and cool down are controlled automatically, and at the end of the cure process, the booth and heater shut off automatically. This alone will save a shop 10% in fuel costs.

How are your burners? If the heater you have has a cast iron burner, chances are that the orifices are partially rusted, preventing your burner from operating to its maximum efficiency. Some burners may be closed by as much as 50%. If your booth takes a long time to heat or does not reach temperature on very cold days, this may be the problem. Most new burners, including ours, have aluminum burners that will not rust over time.

Do you know your booth pressure? Do you have control over the exhaust fan motor, or does it run full speed all the time? New heaters are designed with variable frequency drives that lets you control the speed of the exhaust fan with the turn of a knob and a pressure gauge will display the actual pressure in the booth. This system translates into longer run times between filter changes and more control over the booth pressure.

If you have an older booth and you want to update your heater, or add a heater to a currently un-heated booth… give us a call and we will walk you through up-fitting your booth with the Sure-Cure Air Makeup Unit (the newest AMU to hit the market. Manufactured by a leading paint booth manufacturer.) Our Sure-Cure AMU has a ton of safety features as well as all the latest technology to provide you with an efficient heated booth. Let our design team get to work for you.

Do I Need Paint Booth MakeUp Air? What the heck is it?

Since we have announced the arrival of the Sure-Cure AMU to the market, we have been getting a lot of questions from customers about what an Air Makeup Unit does, why it is needed and how it works. Here are the simple answers to all of those questions. We’ll try not to make it too complicated, because it’s really simple…. It provides lots of air to the paint booth.

Now, why would anyone need all that extra air? Well, it’s not really ‘extra’ air, it’s replacement – or makeup – air for air that has been used and expelled out of the booth. Booth exhaust systems use up large volumes of air from the space that it is installed. If this air is not replaced at the same rate that it is expelled, the booth, or the building, will experience negative pressure (the air pressure outside the building is greater than the air pressure inside the building).

Why is negative pressure bad? At the risk of sounding like a bunch of engineers, some indicators of negative pressure include the suction pressure that makes booth doors difficult to open, exhaust fans that don’t work properly, drafts around doors and windows that cause a poor paint job and poor indoor air quality.

What does this have to do with your painting? Pressure problems make it difficult to paint in a booth and achieve proper coating and curing. When you are able to control the booth pressure and temperature, you are able to effectively remove particulates from the air that can negatively affect the quality of your finish. These problems are more pronounced during the cold season when windows are kept closed, reducing the natural pressure-balancing effect.

When you have an air make-up system, like the Sure-Cure AMU, the unit replaces the air that is expelled by a building’s exhaust system, maintaining the proper balance between inside and outside air pressures.

Some Cool Things About Air Makeup Units:

Replacement air can be heated in the winter months or to improve curing time. You can choose to not heat the replacement air in warmer months.
Cure your paint job in under an hour, increasing your daily productivity by up to 10X
Greatly reduce infiltration of cold outdoor air and drafts through opened booth doors
Encourage proper operation of booth exhaust systems
Improve the booth’s air quality
Eliminate suction pressure at doors
Decrease load on existing HVAC system
Lower energy costs by as much as 35%
Maintain a more comfortable and productive working environment

There are many individual benefits and features that differentiate AMU models and makes. It’s in our Sure-Cure air makeup unit features that make our unit safer and easier to operate. Now that you know why you need an AMU, check out all the benefits of having our AMU.

Want to see the video that launched it all? See the Sure-Cure AMU, in action, from all angles in just 55 seconds!

The Process of a Paint Booth Sale

It used to be that everything could be bought at your local hardware or general store. After that, there was Wal-mart (AKA: Wally World). Since the Internet has become a household necessity in the last decade, online shopping has skyrocketed and people are carving out niches that only the Internet makes possible. For instance, a stay-at-home Mom who can sew really well is able to sell her crafty pieces on Etsy or Ebay. Have some stuff you want to get rid of but don’t have the time or energy for a yard sale? (Plus, you really hate getting up that early.) Snap a photo on your phone and put it on Craigslist. People no longer have to fight the crowds at Wal-Mart or search from store to store. They can find everything, including extremely rare and hard-to-find items or Paint Booths, on their computer.

Shop with Caution: With online shopping come scams and rip-offs. After all, anyone can setup a web site and become an “online seller” without any credentials or validity. How do you know if it is a legit business or just a guy in his garage? It is extremely important that when you are ordering from an online retailer, do your homework. Read the “About Us” page on their site. Check them out on social media (Facebook / Twitter / Ect.) Are there pictures of their facilities, phone numbers, an address, email addresses, etc? How long have they been in business? Do they stand behind their products? Do they have a customer service department? Google their company name for any online conversation about them. Read their customer feedback. Always go with your gut instinct. Okay, rant over… moving on.

Here’s the process of your paint booth going through production! We’re going to demonstrate via photos (fun, right?!). All of our sales & customer service team members are based out of our home office, on the same premises as our manufacturing plant. Both located in Greensboro, North Carolina.

Once you have shopped our web site, watched our “About Us” video and liked us on Facebook…. You’re ready to order. Continue reading The Process of a Paint Booth Sale

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Tag: air makeup unit