JasonPAtkins
Hot Rolled
- Joined
- Sep 30, 2010
- Location
- Guinea-Bissau, West Africa
Hey all, I have a hydraulic question, which I realize isn't specifically machining, but I think will be a simple one for someone here.
One of the projects I work on is a drinking water filter factory over in West Africa. They use a press to turn blobs of clay into rough filter element shapes. It's basically like a normal H press. The press was shipped from the factory set up to use a mechanic's bottle jack as the power source. It was a 20T jack and worked fine, but wore out quickly.
I switched it to an Enerpac system, and with the better Enerpac gauge as part of the system, know that we press the filters at around 15 tons.
Now, I want to electrify the system. I know enerpac makes electrics, but I'm anxious to get away from their expensive ecosystem and move to a more standard setup. I have the hydraulic power pack. Now, I'm trying to figure out what size ram I need in order to accomplish this. However, in order to get the calculator up to a push force of 15t, it's requiring a 4.5" bore cylinder @ 2000 psi. It seems huge compared to the size of the bottle jack that was doing the job just fine before. Am I misconverting some units here, or do I really need a cylinder that big to get up to this force? Maybe bottle jacks operate at much higher pressure, which is why they can get the same force with less diameter? I know that's why the enerpac can do it, obviously less diameter is required at 10k psi - but I've had to rebuild that cylinder twice already, and want to switch to something lower pressure that presumably will have better longevity. You don't have to rebuild the cylinder on your tractor every year, lol.
The other thing that I'm excited about in the process of electrifying this machine (in addition to saving arms getting tired out running the pump) is the ability to install some limit switches to get repeatability in the stop point - which right now is being eye balled, which doesn't lend itself to much consistency.
One of the projects I work on is a drinking water filter factory over in West Africa. They use a press to turn blobs of clay into rough filter element shapes. It's basically like a normal H press. The press was shipped from the factory set up to use a mechanic's bottle jack as the power source. It was a 20T jack and worked fine, but wore out quickly.
I switched it to an Enerpac system, and with the better Enerpac gauge as part of the system, know that we press the filters at around 15 tons.
Now, I want to electrify the system. I know enerpac makes electrics, but I'm anxious to get away from their expensive ecosystem and move to a more standard setup. I have the hydraulic power pack. Now, I'm trying to figure out what size ram I need in order to accomplish this. However, in order to get the calculator up to a push force of 15t, it's requiring a 4.5" bore cylinder @ 2000 psi. It seems huge compared to the size of the bottle jack that was doing the job just fine before. Am I misconverting some units here, or do I really need a cylinder that big to get up to this force? Maybe bottle jacks operate at much higher pressure, which is why they can get the same force with less diameter? I know that's why the enerpac can do it, obviously less diameter is required at 10k psi - but I've had to rebuild that cylinder twice already, and want to switch to something lower pressure that presumably will have better longevity. You don't have to rebuild the cylinder on your tractor every year, lol.
The other thing that I'm excited about in the process of electrifying this machine (in addition to saving arms getting tired out running the pump) is the ability to install some limit switches to get repeatability in the stop point - which right now is being eye balled, which doesn't lend itself to much consistency.