Closed-loop cooling system control panel enables performance monitoring and troubleshooting
Based in Massillon, OH, HydroThrift specializes in closed-loop cooling systems including evaporative, dry, chilled water and heated water systems. It also creates heat recovery systems. The company was formed in 1973, and provides system design, engineering and fabrication.
HydroThrift’s headquarters in Massillon, OH.
In September, the company debuted a new control panel for accessing its systems. This release delivers a variety of advanced features, including a touch screen, remote monitoring and an audit trail.
When it came time for the update, the company’s engineering team listened closely to what customers requested.
“What we heard from customers was they wanted the ability to get as much data as they could out of the system,” said Jeremy Remus, Chief Engineer. “They wanted to be able to monitor their system from a control room. They wanted to be able to see the overall view of how the system was running. The bigger thing on the backend – especially for us from an engineering perspective – was being able to do better troubleshooting and helping them without the need to be onsite.”
The HydroThrift advanced control panel. Click to enlarge.
Diagnose Problems Faster
“The biggest thing we’re giving users is the ability to do a heat balance on the unit,” Remus said. “With the flow meter, they’ll see the flow coming in on their unit, and they’ll have the temperatures entering and leaving the heat exchanger.”
Before this panel was released, customers could see when temperatures were different than anticipated, but they wouldn’t know why. Was the system not running hard enough? Was it not balanced right? Was the heat transfer equipment dirty? With the advanced panel, they’ll have a better idea.
The heat balance of a liquid-to-liquid cooling system shows heat coming in and being picked up by the cooling medium. If cooling water use increases significantly and more water is needed to provide the same amount of cooling, the operator will know there’s a problem. It could be a leak or fouling that interferes with the heat transfer. If it’s a shell-and-tube heat exchanger, it might need to be sent out for cleaning.
The advanced control panel mounted to a pump and control skid.
Expert Support a Phone Call Away
Remus thinks the new trend lines will be especially useful. Rather than having to export data, open it in Excel and plot points, the operator will find all that done for them. At HydroThrift’s own plant, monitoring trend lines revealed when someone had changed settings that shouldn’t have been changed.
These new features help HydroThrift troubleshoot problems, something it’s seeing a greater need for. Post-Covid, there’s been a high turnover at factories, noted Robby Strock, Design Engineer, with many experienced maintenance providers either retiring or transitioning to other roles. Their replacements may not have as much experience with the technology.
“What spurred a lot of my work behind the scenes with the advanced control options is providing people with less technical skills the ability to give us the information we need to tell them what's wrong,” explained Strock. “If someone's trained, they could do all this maintenance and planning on their own, but even if they don't have that training, they could call in and we could give them more accurate interpretations of what's actually happening in their cooling system.”
The ability to monitor data from a control room means customers can now set their own warnings. If the leaving temperature from a cooling system is too high, an air compressor relying on it for cooling could shut down. Thanks to the ability to monitor temperatures from a control room and set warnings, operators can see when temperatures rise and take action ahead of time. For example, they could clean the heat exchanger during scheduled downtime.
The advanced control panel was in development for a year, and is now rolling out to customers. The engineers welcome feedback.
“This whole process has been centered around trying to make a better offering for the customer to make their life as easy as possible,” Remus said.
A sampling of the advanced control panel’s data. Click to enlarge.
About HydroThrift
Since 1973, HydroThrift has steadily grown into a world-wide supplier of packaged, closed-loop cooling systems. Its experience with a wide variety of industrial equipment cooling applications has enabled HydroThrift to become a specialist in the design, engineering and fabrication of custom cooling systems. For more information, visit https://www.hydrothrift.com.
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