What we work on

What follows is what we will confidently take a cold call on. If your equipment is on this page, we can help. If it is on the short list at the bottom of things we do not do, we will tell you straight away rather than waste your afternoon.

Rotating equipment

Motors, pumps, gearboxes, fans and blowers, and everything that connects them.

• Electric motors — winding resistance, insulation testing, bearing condition, no-start diagnosis
• Centrifugal pumps — cavitation, NPSH problems, worn impellers, deadhead conditions
• Gear reducers — oil condition, sump temperature, gear-mesh vibration, tooth damage
• Bearings — failure analysis, lubrication programmes, regrease intervals and quantities
• Belt and chain drives — tension, alignment, sheave and sprocket wear, chain elongation
• Couplings, mechanical seals and packing
• Shaft alignment and thermal growth compensation
• Vibration analysis — reading an FFT to separate imbalance, misalignment, looseness and bearing defects

Electrical and controls

480 V three-phase and the control circuits that run it.

• Motor control — contactors, starters, overload relays, control circuit troubleshooting
• Variable frequency drives — fault codes, parameter setup, and proving the fault at the terminals
• Allen-Bradley / Rockwell PLC systems — troubleshooting, ladder logic, adding I/O
• Discrete sensors — PNP and NPN proximity, photo-eyes, and their PLC inputs
• Panel troubleshooting and modification
• Overload sizing to NEC 430.32, and conductor voltage-drop checks

Fluid power

• Hydraulic circuits — pump, relief, directional valves, cylinders; pressure and flow diagnosis
• Hydraulic presses that will not build pressure
• Pneumatic actuators and valves, FRL units, solenoid valves
• Compressed air systems — header pressure, leak load, filter differential, demand surveys

Process instrumentation

• 4–20 mA loops — loop-powered transmitters, signal scaling, loop-power problems
• Flow — DP and orifice, magnetic flowmeters, Coriolis mass flow
• Level — DP and hydrostatic, radar and ultrasonic
• Temperature — thermocouples and RTDs, including wrong-type and lead-resistance faults
• pH analysers — reference fouling, slope, glass condition
• Control valves and positioners — stiction, travel vs command, calibration
• PID loop tuning
• HART transmitter calibration and trimming

Automation and live monitoring

This is the work that stops a plant flying blind.

• PLC programming and troubleshooting — reading and modifying existing logic, finding faults in programs written by somebody who left years ago
• Getting machines on the network — pulling parameters off equipment so you can see them from a computer instead of walking to the panel
• HMI and SCADA screens — building new operator interfaces, fixing ones that no longer match the process
• Dashboards and alerting — live monitoring pages, trend history, and alarms when a value drifts before it becomes a failure

Remote support, nationwide

Not everything needs a truck. Outside Southern California — or when you just need a second opinion quickly — we work remotely:

• Phone and video diagnosis — your technician holds the meter, we interpret the readings and direct the next test
• Program and configuration review — send us the PLC program, drive parameters or trend data and we will analyse it
• Training and procedure writing — PM programmes, troubleshooting procedures, and training your team over video

What we bring to site

Diagnostic instruments, not just hand tools. This is the difference between finding a fault and guessing at one:

• Thermal imaging camera — hot connections, failing bearings, overloaded conductors, before they fail
• Vibration analyser — FFT spectrum for imbalance, misalignment and bearing defects
• Megger / insulation tester — motor winding insulation, catching failures before they strand a line
• Oscilloscopes and meters — for signals a multimeter cannot resolve

You can see how we use these on any of the 52 free trainers and calculators we have published.