Here is a challenge to everyone who reads this.

If you are convinced that fluid power technology is still a great design choice, then go out and tell others. Spread the word. We in the fluid power industry must continue to tout the virtues of our excellent technology to design engineers, maintenance personnel, installers, repair technicians, and everyone involved with machinery both industrial and mobile, including students.

Fluid power is still a great design choice and in many cases the best choice for powering today's machinery and equipment. What other technology exhibits the strength and accuracy to move something the size and mass of an automobile with a device no bigger than a soda can?

There are many exciting application stories involving fluid power technology that make possible various tasks that we take for granted. Post your stores about the incredible accomplishments of fluid power!

In order to promote the effectiveness and flexibility of fluid power, your interesting stories should appear in our monthly magazine, Hydraulics & Pneumatics, as well as on our website.

Post your stories here and submit them to our editors for publication in the magazine.

If you have an interesting story, just give us the lead and we will follow up.

Often, the best learning tool for technology isn the sharing of success stories. Give us the lead and we will follow up.

quote:

We in the fluid power industry must continue to tout the virtues of our excellent technology to design engineers, maintenance personnel, installers, repair technicians, and everyone involved with machinery both industrial and mobile, including students.

Mike;

The UnderWhelming Response to your request's of the last 4 months is typical of any discipline that uses Manufacturers and their personnel to design equipment, design the circuits that use their equipment and offer most of the training and training aids for their type of equipment.

I believe a response to a request like yours to the Electrical, Electronic or Mechanical field would be a million times better than you have seen.

Even the questions and responses to them on this and all the other Fluid Power Forums are less in 6 months than most Electrical or Mechanical forums see in a DAY.

Take a look at the PLCS.net forum:
http://www.plctalk.net/qanda/forumdisplay.php?s=7a2639f...5e9c80809f&forumid=2

to get an idea of the questions and feedback from a field of endeavor that has Trained and Dedicated persons applying and maintaining that equipment.

Also notice the strides the Electrical and Electronic field have made over the years and the antiquated equipment Fluid Power is using that came from the 30's and 40's and now has a different paint job.

Even in the publication world, notice the difference in the number of Electrical and Mechanical magazines in relation to the 2 Fluid Power offerings.

It seems to me there is something wrong with these pictures and as far as I can tell only a few are giving it any press.

Am I all wet or is there something wrong here?

When will there be Fluid Power Engineers?

When will there be Fluid Power Mechanics?

persons who are TRAINED and who only design or work on Fluid Power equipment and who will come up with new innovations that will move Fluid Power along like the Electrical field.

I have been asking this same question for 40 years so it is either a very bad question and/or everyone thinks the Status-Quo is satisfactory.

Peter;

You exhibit the same thinking of most in the industrial world and in my thinking it has not and is not working.

However, I don't see a change in the works since most companies don't want a change and as you stated it has a lot to do with "ECONOMICS."

I marvel at statements like:

"These PLC people are controlling all sorts of systems. Temperature, chemical, motor, hydraulic, and mechanical are all controlled by PLCs. PLCs are involved with many fields."

This statement could be easily changed to "These FLUID POWER PEOPLE ARE POWERING all sorts of systems. Temperature, chemical, motor, hydraulic, and mechanical are all Powered by Fluid Power. Fluid Power is involved with many fields.

Well, maybe "Temperature" and "Hydraulic" should be left out.

AND:

"Note, the people on plcs.net have embraced electronic control. This has not happened in the hydraulic field except for a small percentage of people."


Maybe "embraced" could be changed to "Are trained in and only work on "Electrical or Electronic controls."

They may make the cycle of a Fluid Power system operate but have little knowledge of how the components operate. However, they could easily be trained in Fluid Power equipment operation and circuit design. In fact I find Electrical persons often are the ones who diagnose Fluid Power problems since they can prove a signal is going to a valve but the actuator that should move when that valve is energized does not move as planned.

I teach Industrial Fluid Power Basics to all the Electrical Apprentices at a local company and find they pick up Fluid Power easily since they can relate it to Electrical opearations and functions.

So far, I imagine you can tell, you have not convinced me that Fluid Power should not have trained persons who only work on and design Fluid Power circuits. I'm sure you have not given up hope though.

I personally favor a trend towards systems people, those that are adequately skilled at hydraulic/pneumatic systems, electrical systems, electronic systems and mechanical systems. I design and maintain systems routinely and use all of these skills on a regular basis.

All of these have places where they are a better fit than the other methods. There is no doubt that hydraulic components offer the best power to weight ratio for transmitting energy but quite often there are better control options available utilizing electronic or electrical control. Only a cross trained professional will see this though. Sometimes pure mechanical systems still make more sense than using hydraulics such as automotive transmissions for high speed vehicles. Only a well versed mechanical professional will see this.

Being a systems person is not really that much harder than being a specialist. One finds that systems are systems and only the units are different. Flow is flow no matter if it is electrons, oil or air. There are some physical possibilities existent for some media and not others like magnetic induction in electrical systems. These are a means to achieve a result with one system when it proves difficult with another.

At the design level I think there should be more collaboration across disciplines until more people are multi-skilled. Even at the service level there will be more benefit when the electrical tech is no longer pointing his finger at the hydraulic guy proclaiming "it must be a hydraulic problem in the valve" while the hydraulic guy is pointing his finger at the electric guy proclaiming "it must be a bad solenoid" when both become the same guy with no one to point the finger at but themselves.

C1ay;

I find, in my geogaphical area that there are many Degreed Mechanical Engineers and many Degreed Electrical Engineers but no one with Fluid Power experience except Fluid Power Salesman or Ex-salesman.

Any circuit design that I do is for an M.E. that knows how to design the mechanical part of a machine and has an E.E. in the company who can design the control circuits from the Sequence of Operation I furnish. What they are looking for is how to get the motions with the most efficient use of HP that does'nt smoke, shake itself apart or give unsafe actions.

Also the Maintenance Department ask' for help when a Hydraulic or Pneumatic circuit quits working and they try all the things that worked before and the machine is still down. At other times they need help to replace obsolete parts or to change the circuit to make it work more reliably, efficiently or in a different cycle sequence.

These are not less inteligent persons, they are just not trained in Fluid Power. Most have had a 24, 36 or 40 hour basic hydraulic class 1 time or 5 times but they don't have the opportunity to work on Fluid Power equipment often enough to remember what they learned or be proficient at Fluid Power engineering or maintenance. You don't just walk up to a 2,500 Ton HPM Press that was built in the 50's and figure out why it is consistently shaking the building at the end of each 1,800 Ton pressing cycle when you don't know but 4 or 5 symbols on the "E" size schematic for it.

Also, who has the knowledge to figure out what is available to replace directional controls, relief valves and pumps that have not been manufactured since 1960.

You are fortunate to have the knowledge to work in all three areas that are found in most companies in the world, but you are the exception as far as I can tell from my limited working area.

Maybe you will have better results in getting people trained that will be able to do Mechanical, Electrical and Fluid Power engineering and maintenance than I have so far just trying to get Fluid Power persons.

I am willing to help in this endeavor any way I can until I get so senile that I can't remember what the problem is.

quote:

You are fortunate to have the knowledge to work in all three areas that are found in most companies in the world, but you are the exception as far as I can tell from my limited working area.

Maybe you will have better results in getting people trained that will be able to do Mechanical, Electrical and Fluid Power engineering and maintenance than I have so far just trying to get Fluid Power persons.

IMO, we need a separate degree program for fluid power than mechanical engineering. Industrial fluid power engineering, even mobile fluid power engineering, really needs a mixture of disciplines to maximize the benefit of systems integration. I really don't know how to affect this philosophy in the universities though.

I do think a possible starting point would be a requirement for MEs and EEs to each have some hours in their degree in other disciplines. Even if the ME doesn't get enough electrical training to function as an EE he/she should at least have a firm grasp on the areas where electrical control offers more flexibility than hydraulics where applicable. The EE should have a better grasp of mechanical systems and how one control vs another will lengthen or shorten the life of the system.

I don't think this idea is really new either. It goes on in medical training. There aren't really any heart surgeons, they are thoracic surgeons. When they transplant a heart they ususally transplant the lungs too since there are fewer vessels to cut and sew back together. Heart doctors are both heart doctors and respitory doctors. Two separate doctors, each trained in their own discipline could never understand all of the variables as well as the one doctor that understands both.

Another example that comes to mind is a position I had at a paver manufacturer. As an accomplished machinist myself I tended to design things differently than many of the others MEs because I designed them to be manufactured with an understanding of how they are manufactured. This caused quite a bit of friction between me and my unskilled manager that insisted it wasn't my job to worry about manufacturing engineering. He said if they can't build it then they should submit a request for a design change and after it goes back and forth it will settle down to an optimal design. I countered that they were still free to do so with my designs but I was just helping to reduce the number of times a design bounced back and forth. In the end I ended up working as both an mechanical and manufacturing engineer.

All in all I think most professions and degrees would benefit with a wider scope of discipline. Hopefully the internet will also give more people the power to expand their knowledge by making it more available. If all the world were more educated we'd all be better off.

This is a great conversation. Let's keep it going.

>>Three people, WOW!!!!!!

True, Bud, but these forums are getting more and more traffic ... we are now averaging more than 600 page views per day on the forums, and 19,000 per month. So, there are certainly a lot of 'lurkers' out there who are at least interested enough to keep coming back and reading what we're saying.

So, yes, please keep the conversation going, it is important!

Greetings from Deutchland ...

-Paul

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Paul J. Heney,

Hydraulics knowledge? It seems sometimes you need to be a genious just to be able to post a reply on these sights! I posted a lengthy reply to this thread and then it would not post. I will try this and if it works then I'll try again!

Can't seem to post anything but a quick reply. I agree with you completely, I read several forums every day, Eng-Tips, Hyd and Pnue. and IFPS. I work stricly on mobile equipment, the problem comes in that much of the terminology between ind. hyds and mobile hyds seem to be different.Even in mobile hyds. different manufactures call the same component by a different name. Deere excavators are made by Hitachi, but if you look at each manual, there are two different methods for flow testing the pump,the same component is often called by two different names.Makes for interesting learning. But the big problem is lack of GOOD affordable traning for the small guy. Of course, the equipment manufactures really don't want me to know how to fix their machines. They just want to send out a service truck. And the dealer mechanic often doesn't know a whole lot more about the system than I do. They don't seem to get alot of training either or maybe it's just a job!I can't afford to take off a week at a time, fly somewhere and pay a large amount for generic training. Maybe the manufactures could be a little more free with their training materials. I don't expect them to give it away but affordable would be nice. Even on-line training is quite expensive and I have found that sometimes even they don't know what they're talking about! So, are there any solutions? How about some really good seminars at the 2008 International Fluid Power Expo in Las Vegas? From basic hyds to in depth troubleshooting. Each person wanting to attend would take a preliminary exam to judge their level of knowledge and then would be informed which classes are available. This would eliminate having a novice trying to understand an in-depth discussion. I appreciate what all of you are trying to accomplish, hydraulics are by far the most dangerous aspect of mechanics. Thanks to you Bud T especially, I read your comments on all the sights I read. Keep up the good work and don't get discouraged!

Peter wrote:

quote:

That doesn't mean there aren't a lot of people interested in this topic. This is a new site. Does H&P advertise this site? I don't see that many people from the eng-tips.com site or the ifps.org site here.

Yes, there are a lot of persons who read the forums but only a few of us Die-Hards that post any questions or answers. You can look at the IFPS.org forum and see some post's have been viewed over 3,000 times. Either someone is looking hundreds of times or there ar many, many interested people looking.

Why are these numbers of lookers not posting? Do they know everything about Fluid Power? Do they not know enough to ask questions? Are they just wanting to check out the Forum to see if they can post their trashy web site? I'm curious.

BTW, this thread now has 4 posters, welcome Gary.

Afternoon all.
I have made my living as a Fluid Power Engineer for forty years now and can empathize with many of the comments here.

I am based in Southern California and the State has chased out most of the heavy OEMs due to over regulation etc. We used to have five scissors and boom lift manufacturers, all gone .
Four concrete pump manufacturers… all gone.

Best opportunities now are movies and theme parks.

I work for a large A&E firm that designs and builds Theme Parks. When I came here there were three Fluid Power Engineers, I made the fourth. One has retired , one is as old as I am, and the fourth works in Florida. I have discussed with management that they may want to think about the future since fluid power is very critical to so much that we do.

The thing about designing for theme parks, everything is a one off prototype and at our company usually stretches the envelope. It makes for an interesting life, interpreting creative intent, figuring out how to defy the laws of physics, at least in appearance, and then designing the mechanism to operate 425 days a year, 32 hours a day , with an designed life equal to the next coming; a 99.5 % availability and a mean time to repair of 13.7 seconds. Well, I’ve told myself 14 million times not to exaggerate but you get the idea.

I’m short on time now but will be back with some thoughts on the future.

Everyone have a good day………….. JVO