A&A Equipment Solutions opened in January 2022.
At the time I was a mechanic at a pharmaceutical manufacturer here on Long Island, and part of that job was buying parts and machines. The pricing coming back from vendors was ridiculous. I was rebuilding those machines myself, I knew what the parts were and I knew what they were worth.
My name is Anthony Delgado. I own A&A and I answer the phone.
How I got here
In 2017 I started there in shipping. FIFO, order picking, inventory, freight. About eight months in I moved over to packaging as a mechanic.
Videojet coders, fillers, cappers, labelers, heat tunnels, neck banders and sleevers, bottle orientators, metal detectors, cottoners, check weighers. Overhauling and redesigning old packaging machinery that everybody else had written off.
Up next was electrical and controls. Low and high voltage, systems controls, PLC programming. Designed the quality rejection systems for the packaging lines, cotton detection, cap detection, neck seal and shrink sleeve detection.
Process equipment got added on top of packaging, I never left one for the other. Tablet presses, encapsulation machines, powder blenders, mills, coating pans, dust collectors. Full rebuilds on Stokes and Key International tablet presses. PAM AF90T, Schaefer STI Model 10, NJP 800, 1200 and 3800 encapsulation machines. Designed and installed V-blender safety controls running Keyence SZ-VH1X safety lasers into Allen-Bradley PLCs, and the list goes on.
Six years there, 2017 to June 2023. A&A opened in January 2022, so the last year and a half of that I was running both, the shop on nights and weekends and the floor during the day. A&A’s been the full time job since.
Parts
Most of what we make is a part somebody can’t get anymore.
It’s out of production. Or it only ships from overseas and the lead time runs into weeks. Or it’s still sold and the price makes no sense for a piece of steel you can hold in one hand. Meanwhile the line is down and every hour of it costs real money.
I spent six years being the guy making that phone call, so I know how that week goes.
Bring us the broken one, or a drawing, or a file. We measure it, model it and make it.
A capper drive spindle shaft, built overseas, three weeks out if you order it. A ratcheting pin for a capsule machine, same story. A roller drive shaft for a cottoner nobody makes anymore. Hoppers, downspouts and funnels for fillers that went out of production years ago. A belt tensioner for a capper, drive sprocket shrouds, a suction plate for a semi automatic labeler.
Most of this is one offs. Somebody needs a part now, so we make it, sometimes run a spare while we’re set up, and keep the design on file. When they need another one it’s a phone call, not starting over.
Not all of it is industrial, and I don’t want it to be. Appliance knobs, furniture parts, wall and lighting holders, flower pots. Fidget spinners, figurines, trophies. Prototypes for people working out their own designs. Small runs and full production both. Send a picture or a file and we’ll quote it.
Sheet metal gets laser cut to your drawing, and most parts can be powder coated.
Equipment
We buy at auction, on consignment, and through people we’ve dealt with for years. Conveyors, labelers, scales, lab equipment. Fillers for powder, liquid, tablet and capsule. Compressors, induction sealers, inkjet coders, neck banders, full body sleevers, capsule machines, dust collectors.
I’ve had most of it apart at one point or another, which is the reason I’m comfortable buying it. What I look at first is age and condition. Cut wires and missing parts don’t automatically mean no, plenty of what I buy comes in missing something and we make the part or source it before it goes up for sale. Anything can be brought back if the bones are good.
Cheaper is not always better though. The machine that saves you money up front is usually the one that costs you in parts and downtime later.
New equipment we bring in from the supplier or the manufacturer when somebody asks for something specific.
Parts too, and this is the half people forget about. Most of the time what’s needed is one gearbox, not another machine. Motors new and used, gearboxes, electrical, pneumatics. It’s on the site and it’s on our eBay store.
Installation
A line that’s installed and a line that runs are two different things. Most of what I get called out for isn’t the machine itself. Wrong parameters, something never adjusted right the first time, a setting nobody went back to. Or nobody got trained properly, not the guys setting it up and not the people running it every day. Maintenance is the biggest one of all. Places don’t do it, and then the machine takes the blame.
If we’re the ones installing it, we’ll show your people how to run it. Basic parameters, getting it going, adjusting it. I’d still tell you to get proper training from the manufacturer or somebody who knows that machine well. What we cover gets you running, it isn’t everything.
Full packaging lines, bottle orientator through to the heat tunnel. Conveyors, desiccant, filler, cottoner, induction sealer, capper, labeler, coder.
Facility support as well. Modular clean rooms, air compressors and piping, dust collectors. V blenders and ribbon blenders, liquid tanks and mixers.
If you already own the machine and it needs moving or putting back together, call and we’ll talk about it.