Here You Go.

Just like in our everyday relationships, we tend to stay with a person or business because we have been “using them for years", but are they helping you or do you feel obligated to stay with them?  Have you been using the same car mechanic forever, but your car still has the same issues? 

Would you continue to use that vendor?

Far more than a data collection tool, IRIS M is RDI’s patented technology that turns millions of pixels from a camera image into millions of data points that can be monitored, read, and analyzed for critical manufacturing machinery, operations, quality control and other factors that affect plant reliability and productivity. For the first time ever, you can now see movement that is invisible during real time. 

In the industrial environment there is a constant stream of new technologies coming to market that claim to be able to increase up-time and reliability. All of these new tools and high tech gadgets generally provide one thing... data. Collecting data and then knowing what to do with it, in a very broad sense, is one of the most important thing that you can do to increase reliability. Take for instance vibration monitoring devices that collect machine data on rotating equipment, they are incredibly valuable predictors of failures assuming one has the knowledge to determine what the collected data means for that piece of equipment. Seeing a trend towards failure on a unit gives you the opportunity to be proactive instead of reactive, like having a spare on hand and scheduling a change over.

There are a few of us old timers still around who would say that straight edge or string alignment is good enough. At that time and for certain applications that was actually good enough. Now we have state of the art tools that we can use to get us a near perfect shaft alignment. But do I need near perfect? What will that extra bit of time get me and is it worth the time?

In the final post in this 8 part case study series, you will see Todd Hatfield explain the final assembly of the 5500HP, 13,200v, synchronous motor in the clip below from a presentation given at the 2018 RPM Symposium. 

The presentation below covers:

• Assembling the rotor to the adapter base with the stator

For part 7 of this series, Todd Hatfield will be explaining the process of creating the adapter base in the 2 videos below. Video one explains the engineering of the adapter base design, while the second video explains the process of mounting the stator to the adapter base.

Video 1 describes:

• Creating a CAD drawing to ensure the adapter base design was scaled to fit into the concrete pit

Below is a 2 minute clip of an hour long presentation given by Todd Hatfield during the 2018 RPM Symposium. Part 6 of this 8 part series focuses on the redesign and rewind of the stator for the 5500HP, 13,200v, synchronous motor.  

• The new engineered stator winding design and CAD drawing

In part 5 of this case study, Todd Hatfield will be reviewing the electrical design of the rotor. Below is a short 3 minute video showing the steps involved in creating the new coils for this 5500HP, 13,200v, Synchronous Motor's Rotor.

 The video below will discuss: 

• The decision to keep the coil design and duplicate it or to come up with a new and improved design

Below is a 10 minute segment from an hour long presentation given by Todd Hatfield. In this clip, Todd Hatfield will go over the mechanical design of the shaft and rotor and how HECO assembled it all together.

The presentation below discusses:

• Design assessment to see how to fit a larger shaft in the rotor and re-configuration

In part 3 of this case study, Todd Hatfield will be discussing how HECO re-engineered the electrical and mechanical design of the surplus motor to match the 5500HP, 13,200v original motor.

This 13 minute presentation will go over:

• On-site laser measurements using FARO technology
• Determining challenges such as
  • How the spare motor would fit into the existing pit