Sharpe Mixers Offers Custom Mixing Equipment

Sharpe Mixers designs and manufactures liquid agitation equipment.  Many of the designs for the equipment are based on a customer’s specific requirements.  A product that is designed to solve one customer’s problem can develop into a complete product line.  The PB-Series of mixers offered by Sharpe Mixers is an excellent example.  This mixer is manufactured using current ASME-BPE standards for materials and finishes.  White Epoxy and Stainless Steel drives are standard offerings.  Wetted parts are SS316L or higher alloys and can be polished and electro-polished with surface finishes 0f 20, 15 or even 10 Ra.  BPE compliant single dry-running mechanical shaft seals are standard and are rated for 200 psig and 350 degrees F.

A customer in the pharmaceutical manufacturing industry has applications for mixing liquids in vessels ranging from 25 L to 250 L.  These small vessels are portable, meant for easy handling and mobility.  The only top entry industrial quality agitators available are much too large and heavy for installation on these small portable vessels.  They create a top-heavy assembly that is unstable and difficult to handle.  The equipment weight makes them difficult to remove and service.  The customer’s answer was to use laboratory scale mixers, since they were lightweight and compact.  The problem with laboratory scale equipment in a manufacturing environment is durability and maintenance.  The “lab stirrer” is easily damaged ad not repairable.  They can only be replaced when they experience wear or failure.

The frustrated customer comes to Sharpe Mixers.  “I need a lightweight compact top entry mixer that can hold up to the rigors of a manufacturing environment, be easy to install and remove and be serviceable.”

Sharpe Mixers finds the components that are compact and lightweight, like right angle drives that reduce instability and improve mobility and IEC frame motors that are 80% lighter than NEMA motors.

Some of these small portable vessels have hinged covers for accessing the vessel interior.  The agitator is usually mounted on the hinged cover making it very difficult to open due to the agitator shaft-impeller assembly extended down into the vessel impinging on the vessel side wall.  Sharpe Mixers has worked with customers that have vessels of this type and developed a retractable shaft that can be raised up through the top of the drive so the in-tank shaft-impeller assembly does not impinge on the side wall and preventing the hinged cover from being fully opened.  This design incorporates a mechanical seal shaft sleeve to prevent galling and scratching with the mixer shaft when sliding and a hollow quill gear reducer shaft that allows shaft retraction from outside the vessel.   Now, the hinged cover can be fully opened allowing full vessel access.  The shaft sleeve is fabricated from a specially engineered plastic, like PEEK (Arlon™).  The Sliding Shaft PB-Series Mixer price range is $10,000 - $12,000.