WEFTEC 2010 New Orleans, what a great show!

The show started off in its usual fashion – introductions, leads, demos and apparently for New Orleans little sleep and a lot of people talking about the fun they had the night before.  This year’s WEFTEC was easily surpassed previous years, with over 17,500 people attending and 984 exhibitors.  The exhibit hall itself was nearly a mile long end to end.

There was a lot of chatter this year about energy efficiency, sustainability and the wastewater infrastructure. A big ticket issue was the EPA’s new Clean Water and Drinking Water Infrastructure Sustainability Policy. This of course ties right into our philosophy – save operating and energy cost, work towards a sustainable water infrastructure and become greener through conscientiously managing your pump stations more efficiently.

Overall the show was amazing, we had great booth traffic, awesome help from Brendan’s reps – Coastal and Odessa Pumps, Hydra Service, Automatic Engineering Inc., Pete Duty and Associates, Instrument and Supply, and Nedrow and Associates. And of course our very own MultiTrode crew, Sandy in particular who did a great job organizing and coordinating WEFTEC 2010.  We are looking forward to taking on The City of Angels at WEFTEC 2011!

General News DuoProbe, efficiency, environmental, MultiSmart, probe, pump station, Pump Station Management, Pump Station Optimization, SCADA, WEFTEC

On behalf of the entire MultiTrode Team – we invite you to attend our new educational webinar series.

Current class offerings include:

• Latest Advances in Pump Station Management
• Introduction to the MultiSmart: the World’s 1st Pump Station Manager
• Introduction to Backup Controllers for Lift Stations
• Customized classes also available

Hurry – Space is filling fast!

To take advantage of this extraordinary opportunity, contact Sandy Santiago at 561-994-8090 or sandys@multitrode.com.

After making your reservation, you will receive an email Webinar Invitation with simply to follow instructions. Then sit back in the comfort of your own office while the MultiTrode Team entertain you with tales of technological advancements and features that will make every day in the field seem like a walk in the park! Read more…

General News backup controller, Level Sensing, lift station, MultiSmart, probe, Pump Controller, pump efficiency, pump station, Pump Station Management, Pump Station Optimization, Technical, webinar

Maintenance is defined as “actions performed to keep some machine or system functioning or in good working order.”

The design life of most equipment requires periodic maintenance: adjustments, alignments, lubrication, rotating, parts replacement, etc. Every time we fail to perform routine maintenance, we shorten the equipment’s design life.

Maintenance Approaches

Reactive Maintenance

Defined – Run it until you break it! No effort is made to maintain equipment; manufacturer recommendations are ignored. Also called “Crisis Maintenance” or “Hysterical Maintenance”.

Pros - No manpower hours are expended. No maintenance costs are incurred.

Cons – You may think you’re saving money, but you’re not.  Shortening the equipment’s design life may result in higher replacement costs. You may have an additional expense if you’ve worn down your secondary/backup equipment. Then, there is the element of chance – there is no guarantee that a critical piece of equipment will not fail during peak demand, or during weekend/holiday time.

Preventive Maintenance

Defined - Actions performed on a set schedule that detects, precludes or mitigates degradation of a component or system with the aim of sustaining or extending its design life. Also known as Condition Based Monitoring.

Pros – Although it is not the optimum maintenance program, it is a vast improvement over Reactive Maintenance. Performing manufacturer recommended preventative maintenance will maximize the equipment’s design life. Money will be saved by ensuring the equipment runs as efficiently as possible.

Cons - Risk is increased by human error during the performance of maintenance. You may find yourself conducting unneeded (but scheduled) maintenance. Although the risk of failure is reduced, it will not be eliminated.

Predictive Maintenance

Defined – Actions that detect the onset of failure, thereby allowing causal stressors to be eliminated or controlled prior to deterioration of the equipment. Predictive Maintenance differs from Preventive Maintenance by basing maintenance on need rather than a preset schedule.

Pros – A well-organized Predictive Maintenance program will all but eliminate catastrophic failures. The ability to plan ahead will facilitate inventory/part ordering and avoid overtime cost. Equipment operation can be optimized, energy costs can be reduced and system reliability increased.

Cons – Requires staff training and investment in technology.

MultiTrode Can Help

At MultiTrode, we believe Predictive Maintenance guarantees the best results. Predictive Maintenance, also known as Condition Based Monitoring, is the ideal maintenance strategy because it identifies when assets need to be replaced – allowing the utility to plan cost-effective maintenance.

To ensure that the hydraulic and electrical state of the pump and motor can be clearly monitored, the MultiSmart Pump Station Manager measures the following:

• Flow rates per pump, total volume per pump
• Energy used per pump
• Pup efficiency in gals/kWhr or liters/kWhr
• Insulation resistance per pump
• Supply voltage (all 3-phases)
• Current monitoring (all 3-phases)
• Detailed fault analysis for each pump

For a free MultiSmart demo, email UsSales@multitrode.com.

Learn more about the innovative Level Sensing Probe and intuitive MultiSmart Pump Station Manager at www.multitrode.com. Read more…

Industry condition based monitoring, maintenance, MultiSmart, preventive maintenance, probe, pump efficiency, pump station, Pump Station Management, Pump Station Optimization, reliability

Pump Station performance optimization has become an important feature  for pump stations throughout the world. A well optimized pump station can increase the lifetime of the pumps as well as decrease the cost involved in running the station. Station optimization can also help in reducing the hardware, software and maintenance costs significantly.

However it has been seen that many a times the pump stations (or lift stations) are not designed or maintained close to the best possible solution. Design changes after the Pump Station commissioning for including optimizations features are commonly seen these days.

Majority of the reasons behind this are; inability to identify all the optimization parameters during the design and commissioning phase;  huge costs and time constraints involved with the software reprogramming (PLC programming and SCADA changes) which are quite often seen requiring vast changes; incapability to see the relevant historical data required for achieving optimization; inability to trial different combinations of optimization features; and changing demands to the station  due to geographical & environmental changes, increase in population leading to varying optimization design requirements.

The MultiSmart Pump Station Manager is designed to eliminate these optimization issues. With the help of the easy to configure parameters through the LCD faceplate the user can configure different optimization settings and combinations. Having more than 500 tags for a standard two pump controller MultiSmart configuration the station’s functioning, with the relevant data, can be easily trended and observed over a period of time for fine tuning. The trending can be viewed from a SCADA system, as well as using the built-in Data Logging feature of the MultiSmart. The license free TrendReporter software, available for download at the MultiTrode website (www.multitrode.com), can be used to view the trends from the data logged within the MultiSmart unit.

Tags with the relevant data can be added for local or remote data logging, or deleted when not required, by browsing through the tag list in the LCD faceplate and selecting a few options. The tag database in the unit has about 3000 entries which covers all of the station optimization and pump control data available.

The MultiSmart unit comes with a lot Optimization features built into the software. The users can enable or disable particular features and setup & change the parameters according to the requirements with a few button presses. Therefore these features can easily be trialed after the station commissioning or whenever new changes are required and the best solution can thus be identified and implemented.

Available ready to use optimization features are as follows,

• Odor reduction (Max Off Time)
• Max Run Time
• Station Max Pumps to Run
• Minimize Fat Buildup
• Well Clean Out
• Minimize Excessive Starts
• High Inflow
• Well Washer
• Well Mixer
• Blocked Pump Detection
• Pump Max Starts Per Hour

The most common settings are found in the main station optimization screen.  New custom configurations can also be created easily without needing any hardware or firmware changes. The pump controller functionality has a whole range of advanced pump station parameters and can support multiple wells, multiple groups of pumps and multiple profiles.

A variety of standard pump alternation schemes are also present in the MultiSmart which are listed below.

• Alternation (std)
• Fixed (std)
• Alternation Special
• Fixed Strict
• Hours Run
• Pump Starts
• Efficiency
• N to 1
• First On First Off

Alternation by efficiency is one of the popular features utilized by the MultiSmart customers.

We have seen that the MultiSmart Pump Station Manager can improve the performance of a station immensely with the help of the standard and configurable optimization features. We can look at each of these features and how the customers are benefiting from them in the coming posts.

Read more…

General News, Industry, Technical Notes Lift Station Optimization, Pump Controller Optimization, Pump Station Optimization