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Although the plumbing industry may not be a field where its technicians need to have the fanciest, newest, and most advanced gadgets to do a good job on a sewer and drain cleaning job, it is still always a good idea to always be on the lookout for new tools and methods that might help you do what you do even better. For instance, a more recent drain cleaning tool that often gets overlooked by plumbers that can help with removing obstructions and numerous other tasks is the flexible shaft machine. Spartan Tool is here today to tell you about the benefits of high speed flexible shaft machines for drain cleaning.
What is a High Speed Flexible Shaft Machine?
Before we get too far into how a flex shaft machine can be of considerable benefit to you and your plumbing business, let’s talk about what they are in the first place. To put it simply, a high speed flexible shaft machine is a type of sewer drain cleaner that can act as a weed whacker of sorts to help you not only break through obstructions clogging up a pipe, but also clean the walls of the pipe as well. It is a machine that makes use of a drill with a special flex shaft machine drill head to spin a precisely configured and defined group of nested springs that are wound tightly in order for it to have rotational or torsional strength instead of the tensile strength that is typically found in standard drain cable or wire rope.
These special drain cleaning cables brush the walls of the inside of the pipe that you are navigating through to clean off any build-up that might be forming, as well as remove various forms of obstructions. One of the most prominent types of clogs that flexible shaft machines are known for being able to take down are tree roots. Flex shaft machines use flex shaft chain knockers to easily chop through all kinds of tree roots, as well as help you remove pieces of pipe that have been damaged from the tree root invasion, thus allowing the proper flow of water to proceed once again.
All that being said, high speed flexible shaft machines can act not only as an effective solitary method of cleaning sewer lines, but also as a great supplemental tool for other sewer drain cleaners as well. Where one drain cleaning tool might be able to do some parts of the sewer and drain cleaning job you are working on particularly well, they might fall short in others. This is where a flex shaft machine can help take care of the rest of the job without any problems at all. Plus, if you are using a sewer inspection camera in tandem with your flex shaft machine, you can see for yourself whether or not you need to make adjustments to your drain cleaning method by using a different drain cleaning tool.
The Benefits of High Speed Flexible Shaft Machines for Drain Cleaning
High speed flexible shaft machines, also known as flex shaft machines, provide plumbers with a simple, convenient, and effective means of getting rid of many different types of drain pipe clogs and cleaning the walls of pipes so that future obstructions can be prevented. In addition, flexible shaft machines also help make relining of pipes a great deal easier and quicker than other methods, as they are gentler on plumbing. These are some of the basic things that a flex shaft machine is able to do for you, but there is a great deal more that make them incredibly worthwhile for plumbers. Let’s check out some of their benefits here:
Work Around Obstacles in Your Work Area with Ease
One of the things that makes flex shaft machines particularly useful for various sewer and drain cleaning applications is that the shafts can bend and also rotate at the same time without turning the small sewer machine itself. Basically, high speed flexible shaft machines transmit rotary motion in a similar fashion to a solid shaft, but they are able to be routed under, over, as well as around various obstacles that might happen to be in your work area that could make using a solid shaft not the best option for what you are trying to get done during a drain cleaning operation.
You Can Use a Sewer Inspection Camera at the Same Time
One of the downsides of using other methods for cleaning sewer lines is the fact that you have no way to know for absolute certain that you are working on the area that has the blockage. You do not necessarily have the ability to see what you are doing as you are going about cleaning sewer lines. This is where at flex shaft machine can come in handy. With a high speed flexible shaft machine at your disposal, you can utilize a sewer inspection camera in tandem with it while you are in the process of sewer and drain cleaning in order to be able to not only see what you are doing, but also be 100% certain that you have resolved your customer’s issue.
One of the main factors that makes this a viable option is the fact that you do not need to run any water while using a flex shaft machine. This gives you a clear view of where you are going and what you are doing while you are making your way down a drain or sewer line. Plus, the less time you leave a sewer camera submerged in any kind of liquid such as drain water, the better off your camera will be for you in the long run. Just keep in mind that you never want to run your chain knocker from your flexible shaft machine into your sewer camera. This can cause some serious damage to the camera and cost you a great deal of money to get it repaired and back in action once again.
Cleaning Up Your Machine is Easy
One of the most considerable benefits of high speed flexible shaft machines for drain cleaning is the fact that they are incredibly easy to clean. With traditional drain cleaning tools, you have to deal with large hollow springs, which are by their nature open to the air. When they are used for drain cleaning, they move through dirty drains to unclog debris. As a result, this makes it so that dirty debris gets lodged in as well as on the drain cable. Because such cables are wound incredibly tight, it makes cleaning them particularly difficult as well as time consuming to manage. Needless to say, but this is something that most people would rather avoid if they have the ability and opportunity to do so.
However, with flexible shafts, they are covered well in an effective protective casing in order to keep out undesirable elements such as dirt, grime, and various other kinds of debris that often finds its way inside of drains and sewers. This makes cleaning them up after you finish cleaning sewer lines or various other kinds of drains significantly easier and less of a hassle.
Water is Not Required for Drain Cleaning
There may be times when you are conducting a sewer and drain cleaning operation to remove an annoying and stubborn obstruction of some kind, but you may not have access to the amount of water you would need to power a hydro jetter for one reason or another. If this is the case for you, then a high speed flexible shaft machine can give you the power and efficiency you need to bust through that clog with no problem at all without having to use a single drop of water in order to do so. Unlike hydro jetting drain cleaning machines, these small sewer machines require no water at all in order to get the job done - making them that much more desirable to work with.
As long as flex shaft machines have the kind of drain cable that they need and a cordless drill with the right type of drill head attached to power the rotational movement of the cable while it is being fed down the drain or sewer line, then they can get water flowing properly again with no problem at all. In addition, the lack of water required to power a high speed flexible shaft machine also makes keeping your work area cleaner and less cluttered a great deal easier.
Flexible Shaft Machines are More Lightweight and Easier to Move
Flexible shafts, like the kind used in flexible shaft machines are used in a variety of different applications – including aerospace technologies. The reason behind this is that they are incredibly lightweight, flexible, and easy to work with while still providing an immense amount of strength to the operator. This is extraordinarily useful in sewer and drain cleaning operations because they are able to bend through pipes much easier while still being able to clean the walls and burst through obstructions quite effectively. When high speed flexible shaft machines are compared next to other drain cleaning tools, they are much smaller, lighter, more flexible, and easier to clean.
Being lightweight and smaller in size provides plumbers with a considerable advantage in numerous ways. For one thing, transporting a flex shaft machine to and from a drain cleaning job is much easier than something like a hydro jetter or a drain cable machine. Flexible shaft machines take up far less space in the back of a company vehicle, and can be carried with far less hassle. This makes for far less time and hassle being involved in getting equipment moved, set up, taken down, and moved back, leaving you more time and energy to take on more jobs or anything else you might wish to take care of.
To add some more perspective, traditional drain cleaning cables are often large and bulky, and are not very flexible or easy to work with. They are like long springs that are tightly wound and open. Because of this, getting them through a drain can be considerably difficult and time consuming. When dealing with pipe that is bendy in a number of different places, flex shaft machines have the kind of cable necessary to get the job done with far less strain, time, and effort. Because of this, flexible shaft machines are far more versatile as a drain cleaning tool than other methods available to plumbers.
Offer Just as Much Strength as Other Drain Cleaning Methods
Despite the fact that the drain cables from high speed flexible shaft machines are much lighter and more flexible than traditional drain cleaning cables used with more conventional small sewer machines, one of the things that makes them so desirable for plumbers is the fact that they still provide a great amount of strength. The reason that the cables from flex shaft machines are able to offer so much strength despite their lighter characteristics is the fact that they are defined so precisely and have a configured nest of springs that are wound incredibly tight. This allows them to provide rotational and torsional strength, rather than the tensile type of strength offered by traditional drain cleaning cables.
Makes Relining Pipes Very Easy
Another considerable benefit of using a high speed flexible shaft machine for drain cleaning is the fact that it is also an incredibly versatile tool. Not only are these small sewer machines able to remove clogs such as stubborn tree roots and clean a variety of different debris, dirt, and grime out of pipes, but they are also able to make the process of relining pipes a great deal easier as well. The reason behind this is that they are able to clean the walls of the pipe that is effective and powerful, but still is gentle enough to leave it in good enough shape for the relining work to be done without any problems. Plus, flex shaft machines do not use any water as part of their process for sewer line cleaning.
