Industrial News Buzz - In a new video posted online, Alpenrose Dairy maintenance manager Todd Toburen credits vibration analysis technology from Fluke Inc. with helping Alpenrose maintain the efficiency of its processing operations.

 

At Alpenrose Dairy in Portland, OR, operators process raw milk into a dozen varieties of milk, six cultured products (cottage cheese and sour cream) and 31 flavors of ice cream. It's a challenge to keep the complex Alpenrose production facility, with its hundreds of motors, pumps and gearboxes, running butter-smooth. If equipment breaks down, processing at the dairy stops. If the bad part is an expensive item not readily available, the dairy's operations could be down for a couple of days. In the dairy business, where fresh products are essential, such an outage is unacceptable.

 

As Toburen discusses in the video, to prevent such breakdowns Alpenrose manages a proactive maintenance program using the Fluke 810 Vibration Tester. The information provided by the Fluke 810 helps Alpenrose maintenance personnel understand when a motor or machine may encounter problems.

 

The handheld Fluke 810 is designed for maintenance professionals who need to troubleshoot mechanical problems and quickly understand the root cause of equipment condition. It's programmed to diagnose the most common mechanical problems of unbalance, looseness, misalignment and bearing failures in a wide variety of mechanical equipment, including motors, fans, gearboxes, couplings, pumps, compressors and more.

 

The diagnostic technology in the Fluke 810 analyzes machinery condition and identifies faults by comparing vibration data to an extensive set of rules and algorithms developed over years of field experience. The Fluke 810 is not merely a vibration detector, but a complete diagnostic and problem-solving solution. As Toburen discusses in the video, it can also be used on an array of different equipment, including air compressors, ammonia compressors, gearboxes and spindles drives.

 

'Using the Fluke, we're able to take a reading once a week or once a month,' said Toburen. 'If we notice something different we can build a trend analysis with that data. If we notice there's a change in our frequencies, that's something we need to look at. Of course we won't be able every single month to do every piece of equipment here at the dairy. We'll prioritize what equipment we want to check on a monthly or a quarterly basis, and I'm basing that on what my baseline reading is.'

 

Machine operators form an important early warning system. If a machine doesn't feel or sound right to them, Toburen troubleshoots the equipment with the Fluke 810 to see exactly what's going on. 'The nice thing with this is you're able to tell, is it the gearbox, is it the compressor, is it the motor, is it the drive end, is it the off end'it even breaks it down to if you have a loose coupling or not,' he said.

 

The Fluke 810 also rates the level of severity of any problems it finds. 'It has four different levels,' Toburen said. 'Green being slight, yellow being moderate, orange being serious and red being extreme.'

 

'The Fluke will actually give you 'loose bearing' or 'bearing wear''it will give you the diagnosis,' he added. 'I've taken the motors apart and each time I've done it, the diagnosis was right on. Then I'd also rebuild the motor, throw it on the workbench, put the 810 back on it and it comes back as either 'no problem detected' or 'slight wear or vibration.''

 

'Being able to say there's something wrong with our equipment, troubleshoot that, get the parts on order, repair it in our downtime and bring it back up online'it's almost priceless,' said Toburen. 'If you don't have that part on the shelf it could be two days out, and you're not doing any processing. The amount you can save? It could be significant.' To view the video, click on the 'Visit Organization' link below.