Hydraulics are used for many different purposes. They use fluid to move energy from one system to another. You can find them in excavators, trucks, cranes, and even wind turbines. In order to keep all of these machines working properly, you need to maintain their hydraulic systems. Here’s what you need to know about their importance and how you can maintain them.
The Importance of Hydraulic System Maintenance
If you’ve recently purchased a hydraulic system for a tool in your machine shop and engineering services shop, it’s likely that it’s a lot newer than most out there. While your machine shop and engineering services shop will rely on this to work properly, if it were to break you’re going to get a large bill. Since the performance, operating pressures, and sophistication of hydraulic equipment have gotten better over the past 30 years, the newer equipment is also more expensive to repair.
To avoid these costly fixes, you need to make sure that your tools are working properly on a regular basis. Don’t plan on using your machine for thousands of hours without checking it for defects and wear and tear. You’ll just be setting yourself for a lot of downtime.
How to Maintain Your Equipment
If you want to have a hydraulic machine that lasts for many years to come, you must practice six routines on a regular basis. These routines are:
- Maintain fluid cleanliness
- Maintain the fluid temperature
- Maintain the system settings to the manufacturer’s specifications
- Conduct a failure analysis after any issues occur
- Schedule component change-outs prior to issues
- Follow commissioning procedures at all time
Some of the maintenance routines will cost you a bit of money, time, and a lot of effort. However, these maintenance routines are going to cost you a lot less than what you would spend on repairing the machine as a whole.
Finally, we want to stress the importance of keeping contaminants out of your hydraulic fluid. To do this, regularly clean your tools to ensure oil, grime, grease, and other potential contaminants aren’t collecting on or inside the system. You will also need to regularly change out both the hydraulic fluid and filter.
Properly cleaning your machine tools and hydraulic systems on a regular basis can prevent build up that could result in expensive damage. Take the time to conduct proper maintenance every few weeks or so.
