Automatic Carwashing in Pakistan

Cars have become the essential part of human life.

People enjoy driving cars. They enjoy more when the car they drive is clean and shiny. Even the owners of public transport (Buses, Taxis, Wagons and Pickup Suzukies) realize that they make more money when they offer clean vehicles to their customers.

Everywhere in developed countries the cars are

washed in Automatic Carwashes. In Pakistan people do not have the Automatic Carwashing available to them and they still go to conventional service stations for washing of their cars where the time required there is ONE to THREE hours. Usually they cannot spare that much time.

Carwash is an essential service like Barber shop,

Tailors shop and laundry shop. Sooner or later the conventional carwashing has to be substituted with automatic system. It has happened in other sectors of life like, Tractors and Wheat Threshers, Construction and Excavating Machines, Computer Documenting, ATM Banking and Electronics laundries, and Electronics scales and so on. People of Pakistan are waiting eagerly for some one to introduce Automatic Carwashing. If we dont do that someone else will definitely do it and we will be left behind. Having knowledge and skill but not applying them will be really unfortunate and missing a golden opportunity.

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Mission.
Manufacture automatic carwashing equipment and accessories in Pakistan.

Trends
People cannot stick to the old hand wash systems and sooner or later they have to adopt Automatic Carwashing. Money is not a big consideration for people, but time is. If they can buy a car, they certainly can afford its washing. Ours is a nation of styles. Any new style has all the chances of success amongst our people. May it be a new restaurant, a car colour, a dress design, or a drive through carwash where young driver has the facility to keep sitting in while his car is being washed?

Past Experiments in Pakistan

Two automatic carwashes have been reported working in the past One in Islamabad and other in Lahore. Both were closed with in a short period of time, not due to lack of income but due to following reasons: The equipment was imported from abroad at high cost. The operating cost was also heavy. Spare parts have to be imported at heavy cost. Everything was motorized causing too much consumption of electricity. The operating staff was not well trained. The plant was imported and no local mechanic could carry out even minor repairs.

Presently one plant is installed in Islamabad but that is out of action due to non
availability of minor spare parts like a sensor. We are going to keep in mind all points which caused failure to these experiments.

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PLAN
This is a plan to establish a Mechanical Workshop where automatic carwashing equipment will be manufactured. The work shop will be located on one acre plot in Rawat Industrial Area (Near Rawalpindi). The workshop will have all necessary machines and plants and enough space for display and testing of manufactured equipment. We are going to manufacture the carwashing equipment which will be environments friendly and befitting with our electrical conditions. Carwashing Equipment manufactured, will be combination of manual and electric operations. The aim is to reduce the consumption of electricity thus lowering the operating cost. We will train a large number of mechanics to help our future customers to maintain their business at low cost. We also aim at manufacturing the all needs of carwashing industries like chemicals required and spare parts. At a later stage we intend manufacturing washing equipments for big vehicles like buses, trucks, construction machinery and industrial machines.

Market and Customers

A number of potential owners of the carwashing business were contacted in resent past. They are impressed by the idea and are showing interest in the business. But almost none of them have seen the system and they would like to see the demonstration before they decide to purchase. It is expected that when they see it. they will they will purchase it. At the moment no city in Pakistan has the automatic Carwashing but when we introduce all cities will have it as there are cars everywhere so are the carwashes. In fact we are expecting that all the existing service stations will switch over to automatic Carwashing.

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Management and Work Team

Muhammad Azhar Zaman has worked in a plant like this in USA and has full knowledge of the mechanics of carwashing equipments. He is going to be the director of the project. Mr. Faizan Akbar is electrical engineer presently working in an Oil refinery in Karachi. He has the vast knowledge of electronics. He is fully capable of linking mechanics with electronics. Mr. Muhammad Aslam and Mr. Iqbal Beg have more than 20 years of experience of running mechanical workshops. We all have very strong belief in the success potential of the products. We are enthusiastic and eager to work together on the project. Other Necessary staff will be hired accordingly.

Financial Plan
To start such a big manufacturing plant requires a large amount which is not available to us. We have therefore, decided to follow the pattern of emergence of wheat threshers in Pakistan. They were introduced by a blacksmith in 1970s and now are being manufactured by small workshops in every town. To establish a new workshop of that nature requires approximately Rupees 1 Million. The Complete equipment for the first Carwash will be ready for Rupees 1 to 1.5 Million. Rupees 2.5 Million is needed to start with. Solution. Mr. Aslam has a workshop at Sihala. He is willing to make it available for the purpose. That leaves us to arrange amount for the first plant to be manufactured and installed. This will start making money immediately and will serve as display too. After that marketing will start and potential investors or purchaser will be asked to deposit the amount in advance. This exactly is the pattern being followed by the Wheat Thresher Manufacturers.

So Rupees 1.5 Million is MINIMUM required for manufacturing equipment for the First carwash.
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HOW Carwashes WORK

Car washes fall into five categories
1. Self serviceAn open bay is typically used in these systems. Selfservice systems have a pressure sprayer, and a foaming brush, that is connected to a large central pump. The sprayer has a coin-operated dial system to select the option you want, such as "soap," "rinse" and "wax." A timer shuts the water off after a certain period of time, at which point you must put in more coins if you want more water. 2. Exterior Rollover A system that is growing in popularity, exterior rollover car washes are automated systems where you drive your car inside the bay. Once your car is in the correct position, a signal informs you to stop. At that point, the car-wash equipment moves over your car on a track, performing a specific function, such as applying soap or rinsing, with each pass. It may or may not perform drying. Exterior rollover systems are very common at gas stations, where the price is often discounted or free coupon given in conjunction with buying a FILL of gas. This system requires less space and usually no attendant.

People washing their cars at a Self Service Carwash

A Rollover Exterior washing Plant

3. Exterior only in Tunnel. This automated system is popular because of very less time is required and low price. People prefer using it when their cars do not require interior cleaning. You drive your car into the entrance of a long, tunnel-like bay. The front tire, usually on the driver's side, is positioned on a special conveyor belt, and you put the car in neutral. The conveyor belt guides the car through the bay, where the car goes past several pieces of equipment, each with a specific purpose of cleaning process.

Exterior Washing in Tunnel

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4. Full service A modification of the exterior-only system, full service uses the same conveyor-belt-based automated system. The difference is that the interior is manually cleaned by attendants, and some exterior services, such as hand-drying and wheel-cleaning, are available.

5. Detail shop A detail shop may hand wash or use an automated system to wash the car. Then, attendants completely clean and polish the car, normally applying wax and using a tool called a buffer to remove the wax and polish the car. Detail shops are often able to remove dull paint and small scratches, steam clean carpets and seats, brighten chrome, remove tar and perform a variety of other services.

Touch ups after wash

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Vacuum Cleaning Shed out side a Carwash

PROCEDURE
Car washes are normally either touchless or cloth friction wash. Touchless car wash relies on high-powered jets of water and strong detergents to clean the car. Only water and cleaning solutions actually come in physical contact with the car. Cloth friction wash systems use soft cloth that is moved around against the surface of the car. The system that we will discuss uses cloth friction wash technology.

Drive In
First, the car is placed on the conveyor track. At the beginning of the conveyor is a device called correlator. This is simply a series of wheels or rollers that allow the wheel of the car to slide sideways until it is aligned with the conveyor.

Figure 1

Conveyor Track with Guide rail and Correlator

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Pushing Rollers
The car is turned off and placed in neutral. Most conveyor systems have small rollers that pop up behind the wheel once it is on the conveyor. The roller pushes the wheel forward, causing the car to roll along through the tunnel, which is the term used to describe the long bay used for exterior-only and full-service systems. There are two standard types of conveyor systems: * Front-wheel pull (FWP) - Engages the front left wheel * Rear-wheel push (RWP) - Engages the rear left wheel

Figure 2

Pushing Rollers

This car wash uses RWP to pull the car along the conveyor system. Infrared Eye
Once the car enters the tunnel, it passes through an infrared beam between two sensors, called eyes.

Figure 3

Infrared Beam Eyes

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The eye on one side emits infrared light that is picked up by the eye on other side. As soon as the beam is interrupted, the eyes send a signal to the digital control system (DCS), the computer that runs the automated portion of the car wash. By measuring the amount of time that the signal is interrupted, the DCS determines the length of the vehicle and adjusts the system accordingly.

Pre Soak
Immediately after the eyes, most car washes have a pre-soak. This is an arch that contains several small nozzles that spray a special solution all over the car. This solution does a couple of things: Wets the car down before the application of any detergents Begins to loosen the dirt on surface of the car. Applies detergent on tires.

Pre Soaking

Tire Applicator

A lot of car washes also have a set of nozzles arranged near the ground that are called tire applicators. These nozzles spray the tires with a solution designed specifically for removing brake dust and brightening the black rubber of the tire.

Undercarriage Washing.
A lot of car washes, particularly those in areas where winter means lots of rains and snow, have a device called an undercarriage wash applicator. This system is located at ground level and has several nozzles pointed upward to wash dirt, mud and salt from the bottom of the car.

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UNDERCARRIAGE WASHING

Tire and Wheel Cleaners

Long horizontal brushes on both sides clean the tire and wheel as the car moves forward.

Mitters
Mitters are series of long, soft strips of cloth that hang from a frame near the top of the tunnel. The frame is connected to a motorized shaft that moves the frame up and down in a circular pattern. This makes the cloth strips rub back and forth or side to side across the horizontal surfaces of the car.

Front to Back Mitters

Side to Side Mitters

Front to Back Mitters

Side to Side Mitters

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The mitter curtain cleans the hood, roof and trunk of the car by swishing back and forth or side to side over the surface.

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Top Brushes
Car washes usually have top brushes and Mitters for the cleaning of horizontal surface of vehicles. Rollover plants use top brush only. Full service tunnel carwashes use mitters or combination with top brushes. The top brush is attached with a sensor which adjusts its upward or downward movement with the contour of the vehicle while the top brush is in spin.

Foaming
The next item in our car wash is the foam applicator. The foam applicator applies a detergent to the car that becomes deep-cleaning foam on contact.

The nozzles on the foam applicator, as well as most other spray systems in a car

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wash, can be adjusted to change the angle of the spray and the size of the opening. The foam is created by mixing a chemical cleaner, which varies between car washes, with water and air. There are usually separate adjustment controls for determining the exact mix of the three components. The chemical typically contains some coloring agent to make the foam more eye-pleasing and obvious.

Scrubbers or Vertical Brushes

Scrubbers are large vertical cylinder like brushes with hundreds of small cloth strips. The scrubbers rotate rapidly, anywhere from 100 to 500 rpm, spinning the cloth strips until they are perpendicular to its axel. Although the cloth strips are quite soft, it would feel like a whip if you got hit by them. Scrubbers normally have hydraulic motors that spin them. There is at least one scrubber on each side, and there may be two or more. As the car moves past the scrubbers, the cloth strips brush along the vertical surfaces (the Sides) of the car.

Figure 4

Scrubbers or Side Brushes

The cloth used in the scrubbers is very soft and regularly cleaned to ensure that there is nothing caught up in them that could scratch the cars. They are replaced once they become worn or too soiled to clean effectively. The scrubbers remove the dirt that the foam and pre-soak has loosened up.
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Wrap Around Scrubbers

Some car washes also have wrap-around washers. These are scrubbers on short booms that can move around to the front and rear of the vehicle, scrubbing those vertical surfaces as well.

Figure 5

Wrap-around washers clean the front and back of the car

Blast
The high-pressure washer is a system of rotating water jets that spray concentrated streams of water onto the car. The nozzles of water jet are typically arranged like a pinwheel, with each nozzle angled slightly away from the center. The powerful water jets remove most of the detergent and dirt from the car.

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Rinse
In an average car wash, there are multiple rinse arches, usually after each major cleaning station. This is a series of nozzles arranged on an arch that use clean water to remove whatever residue is left after the high-pressure washer, scrubbers and mitter curtain have done their respective jobs. The last rinse arch in the tunnel, aptly called the final rinse, should always use clean, non-recycled water to ensure that all residues is removed from the surface of the car.

Waxing
The liquid wax is used to form a water-resistant coating. There are two methods to apply wax.

Foam Coating Waxing

Liquid Waxing

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The wax foam is applied to the car in a heavy coating through nozzles. When wax foam has been applied, the car usually goes through another set of scrubbers and another mitter curtain before going through a rinse arch.

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Drying
After the car is completely washed, the final step in the automated process is the dryer. Much like a giant hair dryer, the dryer in a car wash heats large amounts of air and forces it out through a series of nozzles. These heated blasts of air rapidly dry the surface of the car.

Some car washes apply a special chemical after the final rinse, before the dryer, that speeds up the drying process. The temperature and force of the dryer can be set. Most full-service car washes set the dryer lower than exterior-only car washes. This is because a full-service car wash usually has attendants who hand-dry the car with towels to remove all of the water.

Touch Up
As the car comes out of the tunnel, it is pushed off of the conveyor track. In an exterior-only system, you most likely remain in the car. When it comes out of the tunnel, you start the engine and leave. In a full-service car wash, an attendant drives the car over to the finishing station. Here, attendants clean the interior of the car, removing trash and vacuuming. They usually clean the windows wipe down the dashboard and doors, add some air freshener and hand-dry the exterior. They may also clean and polish the wheels and polish any chrome, depending on the service options available.

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Vacuum
The vacuum system at car wash is a lot different from your typical home vacuum. It normally has a large central vacuum with multiple hoses connected to it.

COMMERCIAL VACUUM CLEANERS This vacuum is about 6 feet (1.8 m) tall and over 2 feet (0.6 m) in diameter.

Power Source
All of the equipment in an automated car wash requires a heavy-duty power source. Each station has its own fuse-protected circuit. Most car washes are designed so that the car wash can continue to operate even if one of the stations completely fails.

The Digital Control System

From the moment that the eye tells the DCS that a car has entered the system, the DCS controls every aspect of the car wash. It knows exactly where the car is at all times and turns on the appropriate stations as they are needed. The digital control system (DCS) is the brains of the car wash.

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