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Rotameter lessons the hard way
This morning I received an email from a gent at Brooks Instruments division of Emerson Process Management. He complimented the article on rotameters in last week's edition of Process Instrumentation & Sensors Monthly, but observed that I didn't include Brooks in the listing of vendors at the end. As one who doesn't mind being corrected when it's deserved (not too much, anyway) I added Brooks to the listing so it is there now.
I told him that I intend to bring up the topic of compressed air measurement again. The discussion about measuring compressed air flow with rotameters was born out of personal experience in an earlier life when I worked for an industrial spray nozzle company. We had some difficulty duplicating the air flow data in our catalog with one group of air atomizing nozzles. We were using a rotameter, and had not realized that we had to make a correction for the pressure. The supplier seemed almost reluctant to tell us how to make the correction, as if he was admitting the product had a fault. (I won't name the specific manufacturer, but the company is included in the listing with the article.) Once we made the appropriate correction, the data matched and everyone was happy. We were able to use that knowledge again when a troublesome customer berated us for publishing what he considered to be bogus air consumption figures. It turned out he was making the same mistake with a similar device. I hope we retained some level of humility as we set the situation straight.
Rotameter lessons the hard way
September 26, 2007
This morning I received an email from a gent at Brooks Instruments division of Emerson Process Management. He complimented the article on rotameters in last week's edition of Process Instrumentation & Sensors Monthly, but observed that I didn't include Brooks in the listing of vendors at the end. As one who doesn't mind being corrected when it's deserved (not too much, anyway) I added Brooks to the listing so it is there now.I told him that I intend to bring up the topic of compressed air measurement again. The discussion about measuring compressed air flow with rotameters was born out of personal experience in an earlier life when I worked for an industrial spray nozzle company. We had some difficulty duplicating the air flow data in our catalog with one group of air atomizing nozzles. We were using a rotameter, and had not realized that we had to make a correction for the pressure. The supplier seemed almost reluctant to tell us how to make the correction, as if he was admitting the product had a fault. (I won't name the specific manufacturer, but the company is included in the listing with the article.) Once we made the appropriate correction, the data matched and everyone was happy. We were able to use that knowledge again when a troublesome customer berated us for publishing what he considered to be bogus air consumption figures. It turned out he was making the same mistake with a similar device. I hope we retained some level of humility as we set the situation straight.
Posted by Peter Welander on September 26, 2007 | Comments (0)
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