Air from the booth enters the cyclone tangentially and spins, flinging most of the powder to the walls where it falls to a hopper and sieve for reuse. The finest particles escape with the air and are caught by an after-filter. Cyclones clean down faster than cartridge booths, which makes them the usual choice for lines that change color often.
Cyclone's not pulling right, the booth is fogging up and all the reclaim is coarse.
A cyclone's catch is biased toward coarse powder, so long runs on a cyclone line slowly shift particle size in the reclaim.
Also heard as
- cyclone separator
- cyclone recovery
Related terms
Reclaim
Oversprayed powder collected from the booth and fed back into the system for reuse.
Fines
The smallest particles in a powder, roughly under 10 microns, which fluidize, charge and recycle poorly.
Color change
Cleaning the booth, guns, hoses and recovery system so a new color can run without contamination.
Transfer efficiency
The share of sprayed powder that ends up on the part rather than in the booth.