Despite of the fact that I love oil hydraulics and all of the involved
challenges, I admit that it does have minor drawbacks, like, for
example, a hundred percent chance of getting an "oil bath" if you work
in this area for a long enough time.
No matter how careful you are, sooner or later you will
get acquainted with hydraulic oil "face-to-face". I am yet to find a
hydraulic technician who doesn't have an "oil shower" story to tell, and
if you are pondering an oil hydraulics related career, you should be well aware
of this inevitable bonus you'll have to deal with from time
to time.
Most of the "wet punishments" will be your own
fault, and since an oil bath (especially when the oil is hot) is a
powerful negative incentive, you'll soon develop a series of reflexes
that will prevent you from these mishaps in the future. But neither
experience nor preparation will ever protect you from
oil spills caused by other "artists" - and this sad fact will be something you will have to bear with no matter what...
Allow me to demonstrate this with a few examples. My
first ever major oil spill happened during my first "greenhorn" year. I
was asked to fill up an about to be tested 600 liter power-pack, so I
installed one of them ball valves onto an oil drum, tipped it over
the forklift forks, aligned it with the fill cap, opened the valve and
went to take care of other businesses as the oil drum would take around
half an our to empty and surely it wouldn't be enough to overfill the
tank. When I came back half an hour later, I noticed that the oil tank
was missing a drain plug... Too late... It was my own fault and a
lesson I would never forget.
Last summer I was assisting a start-up of a 200
liters per minute (around 50 gpm) power-pack. It had already worked for
about thirty minutes, and I was making final adjustments when the
35mm elbow
sprang from the return line spraying everything around with
Hidrolep 46. The resulting fountain was also hitting the ceiling,
contributing to even oil distribution, and setting the audience into a
speed-of-light flee-mode. The shut down electric switch was 5 meters
away, and by the time I got there the audience had already disappeared
over the horizon. I took these amusing pictures with my
cell-phone, the image is foggy because of the oil-film on the lens, my
vision got foggy for a couple of hours too. It rained oil from the
ceiling for the whole week. The last picture shows exactly why it happened - the pipe had been painted and the cutting ring was installed over the
paint. There was nothing I could do to prevent this from happening, but
it still brings a smile to my face whenever I remember the getaway
scene.
Now don't think that if you don't work directly in
the workshop you'll dodge the oily doom. Even if you belong to a sales
or engineering department, at some point you'll have to be
around hydraulics equipment, and at some point the destiny will strike.
A couple of months ago a friend of mine, who is a salesman, and NEVER
enters a workshop, entered the workshop for ten seconds just to ask
something. At that particular moment I was testing a closed circuit
pump on my rig, the protection happened to be up, and when the pressure
hit 400 bars the SAE Flange seal failed (turned out to be inadequate
seal quality) spraying the poor guy from the knees down. New pair of
pants to waste and a lesson learned - no escape from the fate...
So, if you work with oil hydraulics, and haven't yet
been in an oil-filled situation, be prepared - the bath is due!..
