Monetary Measures of PdM Impact

If a PdM program is successful the following things happen:

- Increased system availability for production

- Increased throughput at higher sustained levels

- Increased value of capital invested due to life extension and deferral of new capital requirements

- Increase in assured product quality

Note: To get accurate figures for comparison a baseline set must be generated before the PdM program foes into effect.

Tip excerpted from “Predictive Maintenance Management” Course workbook by Jack Nicholas Jr. available at
http://www.masteringmaintenance.com

Register for Jack Nicholas’s PdM Managers Web Workshop Sept 7 - 11 am

As you service DC motors, remember that the slick brown surface on the brush face of the armature is a good thing. Don’t remove that surface unless it is rough and burned.

The brown patina is a stable conductive surface that your brushes can run on with minimal wear for a long time.

Reader tip provided by Wayne Stewart
Energy Systems Tech
Schreiber Foods
Carthage, MO

Thanks Wayne - your Maintenance-Tips hat is on the way!

More at the Motor forum

Wiring Error Costs a Motor

We recently had a marine application where an 800hp eight pole DC Motor was wired incorrectly at the terminal system that energized the DC Motor fields. Four of Eight poles functioned.

Maintenance had been performed. During initial testing the motor performed well at 40% of full load. There was no measurement of the field status. When the motor was raised to 70% load components within the motor failed & caught fire. Total repair costs approached $900,000.

Removal of terminals within electrical devices require clear instructions for re-attaching terminal connections. The person removing the terminals may not be the same person re-installing the connections.

1) Simple wiring diagrams inside cover
2) Labels on Wire & Terminals
3) Terminal & Landing wire terminal style or size differences

Any one of possible actions can reduce the probability of miss-wiring.

Tip provided by Loyd Hamilton
Instructor/Investigator
ThinkReliability
Houston Texas

Thanks Loyd, your stainless steel diamond plate Reliabilityweb.com coffee mug is on the way!

Find Out More About ThinkReliability

Easy way to estimate your infrared field of view

In some situations, it’s important to understand how wide the image of a scene will be when viewed by an infrared camera at a certain distance. For example, when installing IR windows, the window quantity and location will depend on the expected field of view as seen by the infrared camera when positioned at the window. Many infrared camera lenses are marked with the lens focal length (in millimeters) which isn’t by itself sufficient to calculate the field of view and additional necessary information may not be readily available.

Angular field of view is a much more useful parameter and needs to be known or estimated. Wide angle lenses (designed for close-up work and viewing through IR windows) usually have an angular field of view of about 50°. Their field of view is nearly equal to the distance to the target. That is, if the electrical contacts are 12 inches from the window, the field of view will be approximately 12 inches. Most infrared cameras have a standard lens with an angular field of view of 25°, so the viewing field will be about half the distance to the target (the field of view for objects at 4’ would be about 2’). Telephoto lenses (most useful when viewing objects at a distance) often have an angular field of view of 8-12° and result in a viewing field of about 15-25% of the distance to the target.

Know your angular field of view to easily estimate the size of your viewing field.

Electrophysics Corp.
Tel: (973) 882-0211

Find Out More About Infrared Inspections Made Easy

We all want to make maintenance improvements but do you know what that means?

Most of us use “best efforts” to make our companies better but as quality and reliability Guru W. Edward Deming states “best efforts without knowledge is just best efforts”.

By what method do you plan to make those improvements?

Participate in the International Maintenance Conference and you will gain knowledge about methods you can put to immediate use. You will discover new strategies, new theories, new techniques and new technologies to realize the potential of your workforce and your physical assets.

IMC-2007
December 4-7, 2007
Daytona Beach Florida

Find Out More About IMC-2007

“When optimising maintenance strategies often the focus is on setting an optimum interval for Inspection or PM tasks.

It is also worth stepping back and challenging the actual task itself and rather than say using visual inspection routes to look, listen, smell, touch and feel, it may be worth considering what other techniques are available such as vibration analysis, or infrared, or acoustic devices that can decrease the frequency of inspection by increasing the warning time or P-F interval and also the likelihood of actually detecting the warning signs.

This tip might sound obvious, but when working with onsite groups, they often can fall into groupthink where they do not step back to challenge existing practices. This is one area where an external facilitator has value to company RCM teams.

Tip provided by Mick Drew, Director ARMS Reliability Engineers

Find Out More About The RCM Experience

Everyone involved in machinery inspection should have available for their use two types of flashlights.

The first type should provide a very bright, direct light such as that provided by a krypton or xenon lamp. This type of light is best used for general inspections where the individual may be several feet away from the object.

The second type of flashlight should provide a very soft, diffused light such as that provided by an LED cluster. This type of light is best suited for instances where very subtle defects such as material fractures or surface imperfections are being examined from a very close distance. Where the first type of light mentioned may be so bright as to ‘wash out” these surface differences, the LED light will highlight them perfectly, enabling a more accurate assessment of material condition and failure mode.

Reader tip provided by David B. Wetzel
Reliability Specialist
Alcoa- Warrick Operations
Newburgh, Indiana

Thanks David! Your stainless steel diamond plate Reliabilityweb.com coffee mug is on the way!

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