Insane Hydraulics
Bold and audacious blog about fluid power
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This post contains service practices that can be regarded as "borderline safe" or even "downright unacceptable" (like removing a relief valve from a hydraulic system or checking a flow rate via "visual hose-end inspection"), but I like telling stories as they happened, and hope that people can learn something from them, even when my choices weren't the "safest"... Troubleshooting Slow Transport Belts on a Tomato Harvester
Looking Into SAE J517 Standard for Hydraulic Hoses
An old story that proves that hydraulic troubleshooting is all about people - Straightening Out a Crooked Split Barge
Parker SCJN-600-01 Digital Pressure Gauge Design Thoughts
Closed Loop Recommissioning - Know When to Be Paranoid About Cleanliness!
A mere reminder that hydraulic machines can have more than one oil tank.
Following last week's trend, I keep answering questions of the type "What would happen to my "...insert expensive hydraulic component..." if I "...insert an inappropriate action..."?
A Left-Hand Valve Plate in a Right-Hand Pump?!!
Wireless Pressure Gauges - Two Years Down The Line
Be Careful When Overhauling "Hydraulic Twins"
Installation of Axial Piston Pumps Above The Oil Level
Another Way a Shuttle Valve Can Fail.
Finishing the pump horsepower control series with two more ways to achieve a perfect (hyperbolic) pressure/flow curve - Tackling Torque Limiting Pump Controls - Part Five.
Going "hypebolic" today in Tackling Torque Limiting Pump Controls - Part Four.
Finally - the troque limiter control adjusting screws work as they should (plus a power shift function) in Tackling Torque Limiting Pump Controls - Part Three.
I continue with the topic of double-spring feedback torque limiter controls of hydraulic pumps, and present to you an updated graph and some animated springs in Tackling Torque Limiting Pump Controls - Part Two.
I invite you to build a simple torque limiter pump control with me in Tackling Torque Limiting Pump Controls - Part One. There's an interactive chart inside, and if you play with it long enough, you will be able to tell why a torque chart of many pumps with these controls has "two humps"...
The year started at full speed, so we've been quite busy, but I managed to find a couple of free hours to give the last week's project a better description. (You may need to refresh the page to view the changes).
My Fiends, the Pressure Maker 2 is finally here!
Hard to believe it's 2022 already! We all had a rough year, yet all that's hydraulic is still "pumping" around here, with no slowing down in sight. I wish you all a great year! And start this one with a reminder that set screw plugs and orifices, often used in hydraulic pumps and motors, are never guaranteed to "stay put" even when glued in place, so it's important to know where they should be and check if they are still there.
I wrapped up all of the emergencies on the 24th, and managed to take the 25th as a day off, which felt great! Hopefully, I will be finishing this year as a sane person. Anyhow, since I've been doing nothing but dealing with scrapped pumps this last week, I'm re-uploading the report from the "bust'a'pump competition" in a better resolution. Make sure your pumps never end up like this!
A question to owners of hydraulic equipment - Should You Cheap Out on Your Hydraulic Oil?
I am working through this weekend, investigating a series of nasty break-downs, most likely related to the hydraulic oil. Hopefully, there will be another "industrial lesson" to share soon. For now - another "oil-related" story from the past - Hydraulic System Failure, Caused by a Chemical Reaction.
The second generation of the "pressure maker" will have to wait for another couple of weeks - I have it built and tested, but the bluing of steel parts and other final touches take more time than I expected. It actually turns out a pretty cool-looking table-top fidget, so I'll show it off as soon as I can.
Today I want to go into pump repairs and talk about a wear pattern that can "fool you" if you're not careful when you are inspecting pump parts, and also tell you a story of how I "got caught" by it and had to rebuild the same unit twice.
The Smart Industrial Monitor venture started about two years ago - and even though I couldn't be happier with the results, I found that very few people shared my enthusiasm, which is why I eventually put it "on hold". At least the development part. I've been using my gadgets non-stop. The pandemic did add a lot to that, of course.
But the webinar gave me a lot to think about, and as I was returning to the project that's been on ice for such a long time, I started to think that maybe reviving the development isn't such a bad idea after all.
As I was looking through the project's history - I discovered (to my surprise and horror) that several related pages were still in the older format, which made it impossible to view them correctly in some browsers. So, I had to do some "emergency re-factoring" today.
The article in which I was comparing pressure transmitters was actually a big deal, so I am very glad it's all fixed now. On a related note - I'm reforming the "pressure maker" from that post. I gathered enough industrial scrap to build a far more elegant and portable solution, so stay tuned - I'll be showcasing the second generation next week!