Colorant calibration: The key to your bottom line and your ROI.

See what colorant calibration can do for you.

All coloring systems benefit from colorant calibration. It's true: we've been doing colorant calibrations for our customers for years, and every time, the producer gains the data and tools needed to smooth processes, control costs and hit desired ROI numbers. Calibrations need to be done on every kind of coloring system, every single year. And in order to get the best results, we divide our focus into three main elements of the coloring process: output, colorant and water.

Output is imperative.

Our territory managers use their expertise to help customers calculate machine output, because it’s so important to the colorant system. With most systems, if the fiber and machine is fed the same, then the throughput of the machine should be the same. But you must know the specific output number in terms of cubic yards per hour, because without understanding output, the color and water rates are impossible to calculate.

Colorant helps determine quality.

Colorant can be viewed as the producer’s investment in the quality of the finished product. This number is first determined as a cost per yard and is then converted into the amount of colorant you’ll need. Finally, it’s converted again into the pounds of color injected into the colorant process per minute that aligns to the output of the system.

Water is the guiding force.

As the diluent, water spreads the colorant evenly over the whole fiber’s surface. It holds the most power out of the mulch colorant process and several outside factors can impact the amount of water required in gallons per yard, like moisture present in the fiber source, grind size, number of fines, ambient temperatures and efficiency of the colorant system.

Comparison of Sahara X3:

Before Colorant Calibration

Output: 300 yds/hr

Color: 20 lbs/min 4 lbs/yd

Water: 75 gal/min 15 gal/yd

After Colorant Calibration

Output: 275 yds/hr

Color: 13.75 lbs/min 3 lbs/yd

Water: 59.6 gal/min 13 gal/yd