Parker LCM20 Portable Hydraulic Fluid Particle Counter

icountLCM20 is a proven answer to fluid system contamination monitoring offering a 2-minute test procedure. Multi-standard ISO and NAS cleanliness reporting, data entry, data graphing and integral printing are all standard on this world proven contamination monitor.

Automatic Particle Counters (APC’s), have been widely used for many years in condition monitoring of hydraulic fluids. However, it is only recently that APC’s have become flexible enough to enable the instruments to be taken out of the laboratory and used on-line in order to obtain the most credible form of results.

Unusually, the move from fixed laboratory use, to portable field use has not been at the expense of accuracy or user flexibility, but has actually enabled the instruments to be used over a wider range of applications and situations.

The most common monitoring technique used in APC’s is that of light obscuration or light blockage. Here, a focused light source is projected through a moving column of oil, (in which the contaminants being measured are contained), causing an image of the contaminant to be projected on to a photo diode cell, (changing light intensity to an electrical output).

The electrical output of the photo diode cell will vary in accordance with the size of the particles contained in the column of oil; the larger the particle, the bigger the change in the photo diode electrical output.

On-line APC’s must be able to test the oil sample at whatever cleanliness it is delivered to the machine. Parker therefore had to develop technology to ensure the on-line APC was able to test a sample without the conventional laboratory technique which requires dilution - a practice that would have been simply impossible with a portable unit.

By careful design and window sizing, gravimetric levels as high as 310mg of dirt per litre, (equivalent to up to 4 million particles >6 micron per 100 ml), can be achieved without making the instrument susceptible to counter saturation.

These high saturation point on-line APC’s, whilst losing none of the accuracy of their laboratory counterparts, enable particle counting to be carried out quickly and accurately.