How to Keep Your Hydraulic Oil Clean
One of our clients recently went through a period of experiencing substantial particle contamination in their hydraulic fluid. The design of their machine is that it drains oil from a tank with zero backpressure, without any return filters. It used pressure filters but not particle filters.
In situations like this, the machine created a lot of contamination in itself. Although the pressure filters helped to some degree, the machine was still getting through a number of expensive pumps every few weeks.
Although contamination is not good in any situation, the worse thing about it in this situation is that it has a major negative effect on the rest of the system. Particles can deliver wear and tear on components such as actuators or pumps. This wear leads to further contamination and the cycle continues.
This makes it essential to keep hydraulic oil clean, to stop contamination and its effects from building up and getting stuck in the damaging cycle of contamination. Although using high quality low micron filters may sound like a costly action to take, it will indeed result in major savings over time, preventing down time and high maintenance costs.
To address this issue we suggested to our client that they use a high efficiency, high capacity filter in order to capture particles. By using this type of filter, it could be possible to mop up contamination quicker than it is being made. The recommended filter is 2 micron – which will prove to be in the region of 99.95% effective with just one pass. It will hold up to 1.2lb of particles.
We are waiting to hear back from the client with what the end result is. But we will remain to be cautiously optimistic.
If you’re suffering from a difficult situation with your hydraulics, write into us and we may pick your question to write about.