Mechanical Vs Electrical

Being a hydraulics expert isn’t about just understanding the hydraulics component in a system or machine.?

Why? Because as an expert you need to know when you’re at fault… or when you need someone else to come in and fix the problem.?

A great example of this is…

Electrical solenoids.?

And it’s important as a hydraulics expert to learn how to troubleshoot electrical solenoids so that you can tell when it’s time to wake up the electrician or whether you’ve got a different problem you can solve. Besides who doesn’t love telling the electrical team you can prove it’s their problem??

So how do we troubleshoot electrical solenoids??

1. The first thing you need to check is the dcv. There should be a mechanical override and once you’ve found it, find a tool that fits and make sure that the spool inside moves freely. Making sure it’s not stuck or jammed and causing issues.?
2. The next thing you need to do is check if your solenoid is creating an EMF. Pull the solenoid component off and attach it to a power supply. By placing a screwdriver inside you can tell if it is now creating an EMF. It will force the screwdriver to the side. If it doesn’t the solenoid may be faulty.?
3. The final thing you need to check is the resistance across the solenoid. They will often have the resistance written on the solenoid (in ohms), if they don’t they will often have the amps and voltage and you can work out the resistance using these two elements and Ohm’s Law.? Then use your digital multimeter set to resistance to check the resistance across the two terminals. If the Ohms is off by more than a couple of decimal places it may be faulty.

If after completing these checks you do find that the solenoid is faulty then you know for sure that you need to go wake up the electricians and get them to fix it for you.?

Hope that you found this walkthrough helpful.?

If you would like a video tutorial you can find that HERE.

And we hope that this helps you settle the onsite debate of whether it’s mechanical’s or electrical’s problem to deal with.?

See you next week for our next Fluid Power Friday.