Archives for 2017

New Lathe at Decatur Industrial Electric

Decatur Industrial Electric has added another lathe to our shop floor.

38″ swing x 157″ long.

NEMA Motor 101

Decatur Industrial Electric puts on various training sessions throughout the year. One of our most popular training classes is “NEMA Motor 101” presented by our own Jeff Meyer, Director of Industrial Solutions. Today, the presentation was held on-site at a customer location.

Jeff takes the participants through various items, such as:

How does a motor run?
History of NEMA motors
Enclosures
Nameplate designations
NEMA vs IEC Motors
Variable freqency nameplates
And more.

Leading American Paper Company Saved $150K in Emergency Downtime

paper motor Decatur Industrial has taken the lead in helping the reliability of a regional paper mill and their (DC) preventative maintenance program. As part of our value-added services, we perform a visual inspection of the motors prior to any scheduled plant outage.

Visual inspection is often overlooked as an effective preventative maintenance tool. Our specialists are trained in recognizing signs of deterioration or developing problems through a visual inspection while the motor is in operation.

During inspection, Decatur Industrial, along with the brush manufacturer who supplies the brushes for the DC motors, found an 800 HP DC motor showing major issues on the brush/commutator – it was about to fail and needed to be changed out as soon as possible.

This discovery saved unnecessary production downtime as a proactive scheduled replacement was able to be installed during a routine machine outage. This proactive inspection also prevented a catastrophic run-to-failure, very expensive repair.

Keeping the Metals Industry Running Strong

Check our our new brochure created for the Metals Industry. At Decatur Industrial Electric, we know your industry is demanding; making it important to have a partner that understands those demands. With expertise in large DC motors, remanufacturing solutions, field maintenance services, and special production equipment we can work to reduce your Total Cost of Ownership.

Click to view and download the brochure.

Band Alarms for Belt Frequency Peaks

When establishing current demodulation band alarms for belt frequencies associated with a 2-pulley belt driven system, remember both the 1x belt frequency and 2x belt frequency should be taken into consideration. Initial band alarms for the 1x belt frequency are recommended at baseline + 10% for caution and baseline +20% for severe. Initial band alarms for the 2x belt frequency are recommended at baseline +25% for caution and baseline +50% for severe. Based on test results from known defects, analysis of the 1x belt frequency focuses more on the system alignment while 2x belt frequency focuses more on belt condition and looseness.

belt frequency

For more information on establishing band alarms for mechanical defects read the short article “Advanced Spectral Analysis” found on the PdMA website.
http://www.pdma.com/pdfs/Articles/Advanced_Spectral_Analysis.pdf