Many of us have heard the story of someone who has achieved sudden notoriety for doing or inventing something spectacular. We call these people an “overnight success” because on day N-1 we never heard of them, but on day N, they are an ubiquitous presence. Typically, when you talk to these folks, what you find out is that their success rarely happened overnight. Or even over the last weeks or months. In fact, when you look at this in terms of disruptive technology breakthroughs, it is more often the culmination of years even decades of work, failures, improvements, inspiration and good marketing, that gets an exciting discovery eligible to be an “overnight success.” For CPI, 2019 seems to be the year that we may finally achieve “overnight success” status. In 2019 the major hydraulic system manufacturers across the globe have woken up to the fact that there is simply no other hydraulic position sensor in the world, suitable for position sensing in the harshest hydraulic environments. Our uniquely refined draw wire sensor is solving more and more problems for high power, harsh duty hydraulics deployed into the mining, construction, and oil & gas exploration markets. We’re starting to get that overnight success feeling, and yet, like all the other overnight successes, the sensor itself is the product of almost two decades of engineering, re-engineering, and field testing. How Did We Get Here? The latest iteration of our harsh duty draw-wire linear position sensor, the CPI SL2000 harsh duty hydraulic position sensor, evolved out of the needs of the oil and gas exploration industry in which applications for large piston accumulators are deployed deep in sea water. Reporting the charge potential of a hydraulic accumulator almost a mile down in the gulf is not a system you want to swim down and replace due to premature failure. Yet these are critical control systems that require the most stringent accuracy under the most difficult and corrosive conditions imaginable. For these applications, CPI is the only sensor solution that achieves the reliability and durability requirements (1 million cycles in corrosive seawater), while maintaining accurate position sensing. CPI’s SL2000 Linear Position Sensor Mounted In-Cylinder Above the water, the need is for equipment that is fully intrinsic safety rated. In 2017, CPI’s SL2000 sensor design became fully IEC-EX and ATEX rated making it suitable for equipment that needs to meet either USA or EU standards for safety. In this application, coupled with our waterproof design, we see applications in the hydraulics around the moon pool, huge deck cranes and winches, as well as the hydraulics used in heave compensation systems. In these applications, CPI sensors are a triple threat: completely waterproof; safety rated; and possessing extreme electromechanical endurance. But perhaps the final and most significant reason that 2019 has seen such an uptick in activity is that heavy duty hydraulic system manufacturers have finally woken up to just how easy it is to design our assembly to operate inside their hydraulic cylinder or accumulator. What this implies is that our sensor is operating completely immersed in the pressurized environment of the hydraulic cylinder while completely submerged in virtually any hydraulic fluid, gas, even highly corrosive aerated seawater. And yet our sensor is rated at over 1 million cycles under these conditions. Even though our sensor uses a mechanical design, there are no pressure vessels in the design and the unique metallurgical alloys CPI researched and customized for the sensor do not corrode or bind under these conditions. It’s worth mentioning that even the earliest incarnations of our sensor over 15 years ago, had this capability. Over the last decades we’ve field tested, reworked and refined this design even more. At this point, there is truly no other sensor technology in the world that is as well suited to harsh duty hydraulic cylinder and piston accumulator deployment as the CPI sensor line, and in particular, the SL2000. Another benefit of the constant re-engineering and continuous improvement has been our pricing. Over the last decade, the cost of our most hardened sensor has dropped dramatically, while performance and reliability in almost every area has improved. This is now truly a product in the sweet spot of its lifecycle. If you haven’t seen our sensors in 2019, well then you haven’t seen them, period. Here’s just a sampling of the capabilities of our latest sensor…
Get the Conversation Started If you’ve read this far, you’ve probably got a few questions burning your brain about this tech, and we’re happy to hear about your application. Call us, engineer to engineer and let’s see if we can create an overnight success together. Visit https://www.cpi-nj.com Original content posted on: https://www.cpi-nj.com/blog/on-being-an-overnight-success/ One of the most unique switches in the CPI product catalog, may be our high temperature line of thermal switches, know as “Rod & Tube” thermal switches. With the ability to operate at set points up to 1750F, the CPI Rod & Tube thermal switch stands out. In a world dominated by bimetallic snap-disc thermal switch designs, the rod & tube variety is about as rare as a hot pink unicorn. And yet for some of the highest temperature applications, ones that require accurate set point switching well over 1000F, there is really no other kind of thermal switch or sensor technology that can take the heat! When to Consider a Rod & Tube Thermal Switch for Your Application In fairness, Rod & Tube thermal switches are also considered a bi-metallic thermal switch but the internal architecture of the switch is different allowing for some unique switching characteristics. As pictured above, this type of temperature switch operates by utilizing differences in coefficients of expansion of two materials – the rod and the tube. Since the external tube is the high expanding element, these products (our X, AB, and W Series) offer outstanding response times. They also have the highest set point capability operating from 0F to 1750F (-17.8C to 954.4C). Rod and Tube thermal switches and indeed all CPI thermals are designed for high reliability, specifically to be both shock and vibration resistant. The combination of thermal accuracy, fast switching, and high durability make them appropriate for especially challenging military and commercial thermal sensing requirements. Applications for Rod & Tube Thermal Switches Critical heat and fire detection applications often rely on our X series Rod & Tube thermal switches owing to their fast switching times and ability to survive in high vibration environments.
Are CPI Rod & Tube Thermal Switches right for Your Application? Our rod and tube thermals are typically purchased directly from the factory where we can program the setpoint accurately and insure quality control. All our parts are made right here in the USA in our factory in East Hanover NJ. For more information, please contact our sales engineers today. Original content posted on: https://www.cpi-nj.com/blog/cpi-rod-tube-thermal-switches-unique-problem-solvers/ |
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