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Kidney loop

nowing75

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I was wondering what was the best setup for a kidney loop. I see the parker cart with the 2 filters and seeing if this was enough. Looks like its 10 micron filter. I was thinking it should be less. I'm in the proses no of checking our bult tanks to get a base line of where we are at. I remember that Nige said he has to filter new oil to meet cat specs. thanks for the info.
 

Nige

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How big are you bulk tanks.? Are you planning on looping 24/7.?
For looping bulk tanks take a look at CC Jensen. That's who we used, but they are not cheap by any means.
Our loop filters were HDU 27/108 units but it's all dependent on what size your bulk tanks are. We could easily better the OEM-required 16/13 ISO Code of new oil. IIRC our hydraulic oil could go as low as ISO 14/9.
https://www.cjc.dk/products/fine-filters/hdu-27/
 

Nige

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Coaldust

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Let’s see some pictures of your bulk tanks. Are we talking 200 gallon or 20,000 gallon? What products are you using? I’ve got a couple mine customers who are having success with filtration at the dispenser point.

Consider talking to your supplier about your concerns. It’s their job to deliver clean oil if you spec it. Plus, the majors supply development money to distributors just for these situations. I’ve seen Chevron pay for filtration at the customer level. Are you under contract?
 

Shimmy1

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In ISO Cleanliness Code terms that will probably only remove tree branches, dogs, and small children.
First time I've seen someone refer to a 10 micron filter as a lump-catcher, always thought that was reserved for 30 micron. Can you even efficiently push hydraulic oil through much smaller than a 10?
 

Nige

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First time I've seen someone refer to a 10 micron filter as a lump-catcher, always thought that was reserved for 30 micron. Can you even efficiently push hydraulic oil through much smaller than a 10?
When a machine tank or a bulk tank is being kidney-looped. Low flow in other words - yes. Higher viscosities may have to be heated to achieve acceptable flow rates but many offline filters have the option of adding heating elements.
In normal machine operation, no.
IIRC the Cat dialysis carts have 2, 3 & 5-micron filter options.
The CC Jensen link I posted above contains the wording "The filter is a 3-micron absolute filter".

Also it needs to be borne in mind that the ISO 4406 Cleanliness Code Standard measures the number of particles per millilitre of oil in 3 size ranges; under 4 microns, under 6 microns, and under 16 microns.
 
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Nige

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nowing75

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Let’s see some pictures of your bulk tanks. Are we talking 200 gallon or 20,000 gallon? What products are you using? I’ve got a couple mine customers who are having success with filtration at the dispenser point.

Consider talking to your supplier about your concerns. It’s their job to deliver clean oil if you spec it. Plus, the majors supply development money to distributors just for these situations. I’ve seen Chevron pay for filtration at the customer level. Are you under contract?
we have 275 gallon tanks. We are using all cat fluids as they payed to put in the tanks and all the plumbing. I have some parker filters filters I'm putting on, I cant remember the microns of the filter.
clip_image001.jpg
 

Coaldust

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That was nice of your dealer to offer that.
Ask your PSSR to bring his portable particle count analyzer on his next visit and check the cleanliness of your bulk oil. Just to see how close it is to spec.

I would add filtration to the tank vents, if not already.
 

nowing75

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Good idea Coaldust. Its a long story why they paid for the system. They took the cat oil away from a local distributer and took it in house thinking they could make more money. Turns out everybody liked the distributer and just stayed with them and stopped using the cat oil. I also heard through the grape vine that the dealer was not happy when they got the bill from the contractor that put it in.
 

Shimmy1

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They took the cat oil away from a local distributer and took it in house thinking they could make more money. Turns out everybody liked the distributer and just stayed with them and stopped using the cat oil.

I like stories like this. Always makes me smile when I hear of a dealer thinking they are so important, and the customers give them a collective FU.
 

icestationzebra

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I’d go further and suggest desiccant breathers. Stauff make some good ones.
Nige - If you put desiccant breathers on bulk tanks did you use ones with 0.1psi checks? I would think otherwise they would just absorb atmospheric moisture. I've put them on gearcases but the thermal cycles help purge the moisture in these applications. And regarding those CC Jensen filters - where those two 3um in series, 3um in parallel, or other?

As far as micron rating I've seen lots of hydraulic oil applications using 2-3 micron. 25yrs ago the average hyd filter was 25-40um but many systems are running 5-10um now for the improved life. Systems with kidney loops might have 3-5um kidney filters and 10-20um main filters to catch the chunks. Most breathers are 3-5um. The one place I have seen limitations was with HD gear lube in the VG460 and heavier viscosities as some of the friction and viscosity modifiers can get stripped out if the filtration is too fine. (less than ~15um filter if I recall correctly) If in doubt just ask the supplier, they will usually be happy to answer.

And we haven't touched on moisture, but I saw a set-up for wind turbines where they continuously feed very dry air over the gear oil to pull out the moisture. There is data showing how lower moisture improves bearing life. Was pretty slick.

ISZ
 

Nige

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Nige - If you put desiccant breathers on bulk tanks did you use ones with 0.1psi checks? I would think otherwise they would just absorb atmospheric moisture.
I was under the impression that was the whole idea. To absorb atmospheric moisture as the oil level in the storage tank falls and damp air is sucked in from the outside.? This installation was in a sub-tropical climate BTW.
These are what I'm talking about - https://stauff.com/en/category/011000/011004/011004A
IIRC the Stauff brethers had a check valve in them to rapidly vent the air from inside the tank when it was filled.
And regarding those CC Jensen filters - where those two 3um in series, 3um in parallel, or other?
For lighter weight oils there was just one filter housing, for heavier oils it was two housings in parallel to achieve the required flow rates and keep the pressure drop across the elements to an acceptable level. For really heavy oils there were different elements available, as you mentioned the friction and viscoisty modifiers don't like getting squeezed too much.
In the photo you were looking at the filters closest to the camera are for SAE 60 and SAE 50 transmission/axle oils. The filters for 10W hydraulic oil and 30 transmission oil are right at the back of the shot. If you look carefully you can spot that there is only one filter housing on each of them.
 

Coaldust

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The new SII Snyder bulk tanks at the warehouse have Des-Case SS rebuildable filter/desiccant canisters. No check valves because they are bottom filled.

On the retail side, we sold the Oil Safe Air Sentry products. For the most part, as a general statement, the only customers that take contamination control seriously are the mines and the power plants ( turbine) operators. It’s a battle trying to educate.

The local Cat dealer does a good job, but they have their own internal supply chain and don’t deal with the local jobbers.
 

icestationzebra

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I was under the impression that was the whole idea. To absorb atmospheric moisture as the oil level in the storage tank falls and damp air is sucked in from the outside.? This installation was in a sub-tropical climate BTW.

Below is a drawing of the breather with check valve option. My understanding is that if you don't have relatively dry air go thru the media bed periodically then the media becomes saturated. The checks prevent the media from absorbing atmospheric moisture when there is no air movement.

BTW - Desiccant air dryers for compressed air systems use two media towers to accomplish this. The main air flow alternates towers and some of the dry air is bled thru the "wet" tower to dry the media out. The same effect could happen with the desiccant breather depending on conditions in the conditioned space (tank, gearcase, etc.) vs atmospheric when passing air.

And thanks for the info on the kidney loops - very informative. ISZ

upload_2023-1-1_16-31-48.png upload_2023-1-1_16-39-18.png
 

Nige

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My understanding is that if you don't have relatively dry air go thru the media bed periodically then the media becomes saturated.
Again I thought that was the idea. As a PM practice the desiccant breather elements on our bulk oil tanks were changed at certain intervals. The desiccant in the Stauff breathers (the housing is transparent) changed colour from white to dark brown as it became saturated with moisture making it easy to detect when a breather needed changing.
 

Delmer

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I think compressed air systems are dealing with much more water, and have power available to regenerate. Desiccant breathers would be regenerated offline or replaced. I agree that a check valve would help to reduce the air flow to closer to the quantity of fluid removed from the tank, if you had a half full tank and no pressure control, then you'd have air flowing in and out with temperature changes every day, the biggest cause of water in fuel issues in this part of the world. Even better would be a bladder tank on the oil tank side of the pressure control valve. Sort of like a breather bag in a harvestore, limit the daily air movement, to limit contamination.
 
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