Extend The Life Of Aging And Obsolete High Power Rectifiers For Electrowinning With A Control Upgrade From Dynapower
To address rising costs of maintaining and operating aging or obsolete high power rectifier systems, Dynapower has developed a cost-effective and proven solution to extend the life of aging rectifiers, and increase their ROI for operators.
The benefits of a control upgrade include:
- Improved Rectifier Uptime
- Reduced Maintenance and Repair Costs
- Guaranteed Spare Parts, Service and Technical Support
- Rectifier Controls Integrated with Factory DCS
- Remote Monitoring Availability
Owners of aging rectifiers are often faced with unreliable and inefficient equipment, rising maintenance and repair costs, and the lack of replacement parts such as obsolete electronics as well as technical support from the rectifiers original
manufacturer.
Options to date for solving this potentially business crippling problem have been limited. Plant managers have been left to either limp along addressing repairs to their aging rectifiers as they come, or the significant capital expense of replacing the rectifier with new equipment which can cause extensive downtime and costly facility modification to accommodate the removal and installation of new equipment.
Dynapower has developed a cost-effective alternative to rectifier replacment — a control system upgrade that not only extends the lifetime and ROI of existing rectifiers but is a fraction of the cost of purchasing a new equipment.
SAFETY FIRST
The Dynapower engineering team will do a complete analysis of the aging high power system to ensure that the rectifier is safe and healthy for a control upgrade.
Considerations include:
- The safe operation of the system
- Transformer/Thyristor health
- Cooling System health
“If we find the power systems to be in good operational order, and the system can be safely operated we can proceed,” said Medina Maric, High Power Systems Lead Electrical Engineer. “If there are any issues with the power systems, we assess if Dynapower can refurbish or replace this critical equipment — most instances we can, and will do as a part of the upgrade.”
MODERN CONTROLS REDUCE OPERATING COSTS
Modern controls with PLCs provide the end user with a host of monitoring options unavailable with older systems. For instance, instead of trying to diagnose the root of a fault signal that could lie in dozens of possible locations within the rectifier and take upwards of days to complete; diagnosis and repair is often reduced to minutes. “We can take a problem that could potentially put a client off line for days costing them hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost productivity, and reduce that to being solved in minutes, and in many instances with proper monitoring prevent the problem from ever happening,” said Maric.
MONITOR YOUR EQUIPMENT FROM AFAR
With modern controls, end users can not only tie into their factory’s DCS to monitor the operations of their system, it is possible to take a decades old rectifier and monitor its operation from anywhere in the world. “That is the amazing thing, no matter where you are in the world, you can see the operation of your rectifier. With older controls you literally had to be standing in front of the rectifier to monitor its performance,” said Maric.
GUARANTEE THE AVAILABILITY OF SPARE PARTS AND SERVICE FOR YOUR RECTIFIER
A number of rectifier manufacturers — GE, Westinghouse, Robicon, etc. — have either discontinued the production and service of their rectifier lines or have gone out of business. This leaves owners of their rectifiers often without a reliable point for service or spare parts. With a Dynapower control upgrade, spare parts and service is guaranteed to be available through Dynapower Aftermarket Services Team. Technical support is also available 24/7 to ensure maximum uptime and efficiency.
DYNAPOWER’S APPROACH TO UPGRADES MINIMIZES INSTALLATION DOWNTIME
In each case, after the design/engineering phase is complete, the upgraded controls are built at Dynapower’s 150,000 sq. ft. vertically integrated manufacturing facility in South Burlington, Vermont. “We do this so we can work closely with our manufacturing staff, and more importantly test the controls prior to getting into the field to install the upgrade,” says Maric. “This saves valuable time on both ends.”
By designing, building and testing the upgrade components in our facility, Dynapower reduces the downtime during the installation of the control upgrade
During installation, Dynapower works closely with the client to coordinate efforts and reduce downtime to a minimum. Upon completion of the install, Dynapower commissions the rectifier, and provides full schematics of the new system as well as onsite training on its operation.
For more information contact Dynapower at [email protected] or via telephone at 1.866.690.9063.
For further information about Dynapower, please visit www.dynapower.com.