Wood Moisture Applications
Dictate the Quality & Efficiency of the Process
Why Are We Different?
Leader in Moisture Measurement & Control
Over 40 Years of Experience and Top Quality Local Support in Your Area
Zero Drifting or Re-Calibrations
Guaranteed Not to Drift or Need Re-Calibrations Over Time – Forget Any Yearly Maintenance Too!
Cutting Edge Technology
A Non-Contact Option Utilizing Near-Infrared Technology Provides Superior Data Results
Efficiency Improvements
Increase Production Efficiency by 400% or More With a Moisture Measurement & Control System from MoistTech
Software & Communications
MoistTech Does Not Require Any External Hardware and Also Provides Software Free of Charge with Unlimited Licensing Capabilities
Manufacturing Improvements with Moisture Control
Managing the moisture content in wood products is among the most significant issues in production of the forest and wood industry. An unwanted amount of moisture can cause large impacts on the final product quality and also interfere with proper production. MoistTech’s NIR (near-infrared) moisture sensor allows wood manufacturers to easily adjust moisture levels on real time information. Proper moisture measurement and management can create lower raw material and fuel costs, provide higher returns, as well as produce much more consistent product.
With numerous years of knowledge and experience in the wood and forest processing industry, MoistTech maintains an innovative wood moisture sensor that out performs all competition. The sensors are utilized for non-contact measurements of moisture in forest products such as fiber, sawdust, hog fuel, wood flakes, and wood particles.
MoistTech boasts thousands of installations worldwide, including a variety of forest products, offering both online and laboratory NIR moisture sensors for spot tests in your lines or quality control labs.
The MoistTech IR-3000 moisture sensor has been used extensively within the wood products industry and is ideal for process control of dryers, blenders and incoming raw material providing real-time moisture measurement. Installation is quick and simple and only needs the wood moisture sensor to be mounted a few inches above the product. MoistTech’s product database allows us to pre-calibrate the wood moisture sensor. With known product moisture samples each instrument can be calibrated within a few minutes prior to shipment. Field installation then becomes even simpler.
The IR-3000 stores calibrations that can be transferred to other instruments on similar process applications. Each wood moisture sensor is identical, which then allows calibration settings to be used on all instruments on the same application ranges. Standard power requirements and all outputs are incorporated. The sensor provides extensive data through Ethernet connection or if required has several 4-20 ma outputs together ever other common output. Operator interface and digital displays can also be provided. For additional information or to discuss your application, please contact MoistTech.
Wood Product Veneer
Moisture content of wood affects many wood properties such as strength, drying, glue curing and bond performance. Moisture measurement is an important part of process control during veneer production in order to keep pace with the flow of materials. With MoistTech’s NIR moisture sensors real-time data is fed directly to the mills distributed control system for process control.
Wood Product Blending
Product that is put to the blender is critical to the plant operation. Correct wood moisture content will allow for precise blending addition that in turn will reduce waste and provide significant cost savings. Many plants report savings alone pay for the cost of moisture / resin control within weeks of installation. At the exit of the blender the process can be refined to confirm the correct resin addition thus preventing press explosions from high moisture in the forming process. Blown boards can be eliminated and precise moisture / resin control will ensure excellent board properties. Trend analysis that is incorporated into the software in each sensor will allow the operator to prevent problems before they cause production interruptions
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Raw Material & Hog Fuel
Another important concern of the forest industry is to trying to monitor the quality of raw material going into the mill. Moisture information is needed to determine how much wood a mill is purchasing since much of the pulp wood is purchased on weight. Also, process monitoring is essential due to the variations of quality of the raw wood materials used. An excess of moisture will affect resin coatings causing de-laminating and blown boards. Incoming raw material can be monitored to within 0.5% which allows the dryer personnel to prevent major process changes resulting in interruptions. Dryer in feed can be controlled thus allowing the output to maintain precise moisture levels to within 0.1% accuracy. On hog fuel applications the material can be blended for a more efficient combustion and significant fuel cost.
Wood Product Dryer Measurement
Lumber drying is one of the most expensive and important phases of hardwood processing to help improve lumber quality and lower dryer costs. Incoming wood moisture measurement together with feed rate can prevent overloading the dryer. Mills that use NIR for moisture measurement and control benefit from a reduction in fuel consumption and maximization of energy efficiency by reducing CO2 emissions during drying. Additionally reducing “dusting” that occurs when heat is too high and moisture is too low resulting in product loss. Additionally, measurement of material at the exit ensures that material going to the blender if at the optimum moisture content for resin addition as well as optimizes moisture prior to the palletizer (10-20%). Moisture measurement at the exit of the dryer can save significant amount of fuel while more importantly prevent fires or explosion risk. Trend analysis that is incorporated into each sensor can be used to give operator knowledge of problems before they happen.
Let’s Build Something Together
Are you looking to measure and control the moisture within your process? We have installed thousands of sensors in even the harshest conditions and would strive to earn your business!
Near-Infrared Moisture Detection is State-of-the-Art
The precision of NIR moisture sensors can help increase the quality of your product resulting in less lost time and money.
Combining our long experience with improvements suggested by our customers, we’ve designed a better, more precise and more accurate NIR moisture sensor.
More Precision Than Other Technologies
The 3000 Series Near Infrared moisture sensor is designed to not only be more accurate but to be low maintenance as well. An initial calibration is all it takes, and our NIR moisture sensor is ready to go. The IR-3000 uses NIR technology to take precise measurements in percentage wet and percentage dry, allowing you to make real time adjustments either automatically or manually. Our NIR moisture sensor will help you achieve a better, more consistent product.
Instant ROI
The most “bang for the buck” happens when you can control the moisture in the process through an automatic, feed-back-loop control system. A feed-back-loop changes the process based on the in-line measurement. If the collection and analysis of real-time data is the only purpose of the testing, but the analysis of the data has potential to define substantive future process changes, an in-line solution may have a high potential ROI.
Avoid Downtime with Quick Measurements
Enjoy immediate adjustments to your process based on real-time measurements from our online NIR sensors. Avoid costly downtime and excessive scrap by catching any out-of-tolerance readings as quickly as possible. Immediate changes can be made to your production line to stop extra waste and keep the line moving. Connect our sensors directly to your PLC by RS232 or Ethernet for complete software control of your line.
Unbeatable Accuracy & Reliability
Our non-drift optical design gives you repeatable results in the most accurate measurements available. Calibrated from the factory, the sensor requires no further maintenance to maintain their accuracy. Results are unaffected by heat or humidity.
Moisture Technology for Wood Applications
When you’re working with various wood applications, the ability to sense moisture in your products is imperative. MoistTech Corp. has developed a wide variety of sensors and technology that will allow you to carefully inspect and create wood products with little to no moisture content.
Client Testimonials
“The knowledgeable MoistTech Team provides our organization with outstanding support through the development and implementation process. We have worked together on a variety of different projects and applications; their experience has enabled our engineering team to properly evaluate and design systems that meet with our customer’s requirements.”
“Our company’s manufacturing division had a competitive moisture gauge installed on their forming line. The gauge would continually fail due to high temperature and give multiple other issues causing delay in production. We looked for options and the cost to replace the gauge was estimated to be around $25K to $30K and the cost to repair was $15K to $20K — and repair time was excessive. MoistTech Corp. came in and supplied an IR3000 moisture gauge with a vortex cooling panel a few months ago, and to our complete satisfaction, the gauge has been running without any problem due to heat and is correlating with lab test results within 0.1%.”
“I have found that changing the moisture percentage even by as little as 1% makes a noticeable difference in the pellet quality both in the durability and in the sheen. If the moisture rate varies by 3-5% it is almost impossible to consistently make a durable pellet at
all. The other factor that moisture directly affects is the amperage of the main drive on the pellet mill… I have seen over a 20% decrease in production rates simply because the inbound biomass wasn’t a consistent moisture, not to mention there is the
possibility of plugging the mill. How is this overcome? We have found that by using Moisttech’s IR3000 moisture sensors, we are able to make adjustments to the programming of the dryer system to provide a more consistent biomass moisture rate in real time”
