Spillpruf™ Spill Management System
Protecting an optical table’s inner core from spills due to water-cooled or liquid-dye lasers, coffee, and soft drinks prevents major contamination deep in the honeycomb core and ultimately the stability of the table.
The SPILLPRUF™ configuration seals off entire rows of mounting holes and channels liquids safely away from the table’s internal honeycomb core. Unlike tables with individually sealed holes that must be painstakingly vacuumed one by one to clean up spills, SPILLPRUF provides the ultimate level of honeycomb protection by sealing entire rows of holes. Cleanup is easier, faster, more efficient and doesn’t require the removal of apparatus from the table.
SPILLPRUF increases table rigidity
The SPILLPRUF all-metal construction provides a truss-like reinforced double top skin that increases the stiffness of the table. KSI uses the same principle used to increase stiffness in aircraft wings.
Some alternative designs use a low modulus plastic dimpled membrane in series between the skin and core. This effectively reduces table stiffness.
Metal cup designs add weight and therefore increase deflection but do not stiffen the table.
SPILLPRUF maintains table thermal conductivity
Our SPILLPRUF all-metal construction ensures rapid heat flow throughout, eliminating tabletop distortion due to uneven expansion and contraction. Alternative designs using a plastic membrane under the top skin will experience slower heat transfer and flatness degradation.
SPILLPRUF – A Better Technology For Handling Spills
The patented SPILLPRUF technique for protecting the inner core of KSI’s honeycomb optical tables from spills is a unique feature that also solves a problem many customers have had with individually sealed holes.
Spilled liquids are never confined to one hole, they always drain into many holes over a random area. With the individually sealed holes approach, cleanup dictates that each hole be painstakingly vacuumed out, cleaned by pouring cleaning fluids into the holes, and then re-vacuumed to remove the cleaning fluids. Many times this process has to be repeated several times to assure proper cleaning. And if there is any apparatus on the table it would need to be removed to allow access to holes.
With the SPILLPRUF design, fluids drain into an aluminum channel that isolates the spilled fluids from the honeycomb material. This channel not only completely isolates spills, but also helps to provide additional damping and structural integrity to the tabletop. Cleanup is simply accomplished by tilting the isolated tabletop (pneumatic leveling valves allow for this process), inserting a vacuum nozzle in each of the lowest rows of holes, and removing the spilled fluids and cleaning solution. Because fluids are drained to the lowest hole in each row, there is no need to remove any apparatus from the tabletop to facilitate cleaning.
SPILLPRUF U.S. Patent #5,962,104