Case Studies
Case Study #1 - Smart Controllers
We had a potential customer at a downtown Los Angeles Office Building. They have three Cooling Towers that were installed side by side. At the time they were using another chemical water treatment company. The mechanical contractor called us to get another opinion on the existing water treatment configuration. The contractor and building management felt that they spent too much time dealing with the water treatment and wanted a resolution. Prior to the existing water treatment company, they had another water treatment company that used three separate conductivity controllers on each cooling tower.
The existing water treatment company removed the conductivity controllers and installed one conductivity controller and one bleed valve for all three towers, with separate supply and return water lines for the conductivity controller. Since the conductivity controller was on the opposite side of one of the Cooling Towers, the distance increased from one tower to the next. Since the piping was all the same size there was a water balance issue. The conductivity controller was reading a mixture of the three cooling tower return lines. When samples were taken from each individual tower they were all different. The tower the furthest away had double the TDS and one third of the treatment chemical. Needless to say, the tower the furthest away from the conductivity controller was accumulating calcium at a rapid pace.
We suggested installing a cabinet, one Smart Megatron Controller, running separate supply and return lines from the controller to each tower, installing a separate bleed valve for each tower and connecting the bleed valve to each tower’s centrifugal separator.
We turned our potential customer into our customer. If there is any issue that constitutes an alarm condition with any of the three towers we get an email. We log onto the controller and determine the necessity to communicate with the mechanical contractor, building representative, and/or dispatch a service technician.
Case Study #2 - Smart Controllers
We have a customer that purchased four separate Fluid Coolers and installed them in one yard. Each Fluid Cooler came with a separate conductivity controller and a Pulse Pure Chemical Free Water Treatment System. We installed temporary pH controllers in order to passivate the galvanized steel tube bundles. Eventually the Pulse Pure System did not perform to the manufactures expectations and were no longer utilized.
Due to the condition of the make up water they were limited to running two cycles of concentration (COC) under a conventional water treatment program. We suggested a pH program that would increase their COC to six. Due to the sensitivity of running a pH program we suggested the need to install one Smart Controller to replace the existing eight controllers. As an Advantage Controls Distributor we installed one Megatron Controller to run all four Fluid Coolers. The controller communicates through the internet and will send alarms via email. We can then log on to the system and determine the necessity to communicate with on site operators and/or dispatch a service technician.
Instead of piping the water from each Fluid Cooler to the Megatron Controller, we installed pH transmitters at each Fluid Cooler, then ran all signal wires and relay wires through EMT to and from each Fluid Cooler.
Case Study #3 - Centrifugal Separator
Centrifugal Separators are excellent for cleaning cooling tower basins and keeping heat exchangers clean. Anything that is airborne and gets near the condenser will be drawn into the condenser. We have a customer that changed their chiller. The new chiller utilized a heat exchanger that had a low micron tolerance. They had a y-stainer prior to the chiller that they had to clean daily or the water flow would get restricted and the chiller would go off on high head pressure. They asked us for a solution. We recommended installing a side stream centrifugal separator skid with a separate pump that filtered down to 40 microns. We installed the system and it resolved the problem.
