Brooks Instrument Blog

I was just informed that as of yesterday, January 3, 2012, our long-time Brooks sales rep, Webco Controls, Inc, merged with Miller Energy Inc. This is pretty exciting news for our customers in the Northeast United States who deal with Webco. This merger will really enhance the technical inside sales support for customers as well as providing them a very broad range of instrumentation and valve manufacturers. Read more…

While we were cleaning out our offices a few weeks ago a co-worker of mine handed me a great Norman Rockwell oil painting that we used to have hanging in one of our hallways. It was taken down when we were updating our facility. He wasn’t sure what to do with it. The reason we used to have it hanging up in the walls at Brooks (and the reason I’m going to find it another nice home on our walls) is because in the background of the picture you can see some Brooks Sho-Rate variable area flow meters between the two men on the left. Brooks provided Sho-Rate flow meters to  NASA for some of the first missions into space. Read more…

Last week a co-worker of mine was cleaning out some old marketing demos and found the beauty pictured below. This is an old Full-View variable area flow meter. We took guesses amongst ourselves as to what year this was manufactured. The product manager, Jim Dillon, had to find out. So he went and pulled technical microfilm … that’s right, I said microfilm! It took a a few days because the machine to read the microfilm needed a new fuse. This was turning into quite the project!!! Well … we found out the year. You can see the order form pictured below. I blocked out any indication of what year this was produced. Can you guess?

Take a guess before the year is through (deadline is 12/31/11) and the first ten (10) responders that guess the correct year this product was produced will win a 4GB memory stick shaped like our new GF40/80 thermal mass flow meter/mass flow controller.

I’m personally very excited to present to everyone our brand new Brooks Instrument product guide. Updated with all of our latest and greatest products like the GF40/80 mass flow meter / mass flow controller, XacTorr vacuum capacitance manometer, SolidSense II pressure transducer/transmitter, pressure gauges, LF200 ultrasonic liquid flow controller, and more. I won’t bore you with a long blog post about this product guide, just download it and check it out instead!

Well, last week sure was a busy one for Brooks with two major trade shows going on for us at the same time. We had the Fuel Cell Seminar in Orlando, FL and the Chem Show in New York, NY last week. I personally attended the Chem Show in NYC. The show was much smaller than in years past but we still made some good contacts and spoke with a lot of customers searching for flow meters and flow controllers. Not to mention our direct liquid injection vaporizer system. I always find it humorous that our magical floating ping pong demo attracts so much attention. It’s so simple yet everyone loves to stop and see how we are using our 4800 Series mass flow controller and 1355 Sho-Rate flowmeter to levitate  a ping pong ball in mid air! Read more…

Yesterday, during the Chem Show in New York City, our very own Steve Kannengieszer was interviewed by Chemical Processing magazine‘s Senior Digital Editor, Traci Purdum. We’re still waiting for the video but I thought I would share some of the Q&A’s that were covered. If you are at the Chem Show, stop by and see us at booth 303! Read more…

During the same exact week that we’ll be at the Chem Show, we’ll also being exhibiting at the Fuel Cell Seminar, dividing and conquering! You’ll see our industry experts Jan Christensen and Nigel Glover hanging out and ready to talk flowmeters with you at our booth, which is booth #412.

We have a lot of great new products to showcase at this years Fuel Cell Seminar like the SLA5800 Series digital thermal mass flow controllers and mass flow meters. The SLA5800 Series elastomer sealed digital thermal mass flow meters and mass flow controllers offer unparalleled flexibility and performance for the fuel cell industry. They offer faster response, better accuracy and improved control over traditional analog devices. Industry leading repeatability ensures a stable process even under changing conditions. The devices’ self diagnostics and alarms eliminate downtime. These devices have a proven track record in many fuel cell test stands, so stop by and ask Nigel or Jan about them. Read more…

It’s time for the Chem Show again. For Brooks, it’s nice that this show is right around the corner from our headquarters in Hatfield, PA … just a simple train ride up to New York. I’m looking forward to the Chem Show and if you are going, be sure to stop by our booth, booth #303.

We have a lot of new stuff to share with everyone at the Chem Show this year. We have our new vacuum capacitance manometers, the CMC and XacTorr Series vacuum capacitance manometers. These capacitance diaphragm gauges incorporate industry-leading features to improve measurement reliability, minimize drift, resist diaphragm contamination and minimize thermal effects in vacuum measurement applications. Read more…

Later this week we’ll be hanging out with our local sales agent in Puerto Rico, MR Franceschini (MRF) at the Interphex Puerto Rico trade show. Each year Brooks partner’s up with MRF to exhibit. Boy does this trade show do it right. It’s on Thursday and Friday and starts each day at 1pm and ends at 8pm. The show has a party atmosphere and everyone that comes truly seems to have a good time. It’s the best way to mix business with pleasure. I had the pleasure of attending this trade show myself years ago, but our regional sales manager for this territory, Rich Fravel, will be in attendance this year, as he is every year … lucky guy! Read more…

The Brooks online store is starting to grow! This week, we added the Sho-Rate 1250 and 1255 low-flow glass tube rotameters to the online shop. As a reminder, we’re offering free shipping on all orders within the domestic United States.

The 1250 and 1255 Sho-Rate flow meters feature an easy-to-read scale with rotating lens. These provide a 180-degree magnified view, making it the ideal choice for displaying on panels and cabinets. The Model 1250 Sho-Rate flow meter provides 10-percent accuracy for liquids and gases, and the Model 1255 flow meter provides 5-percent accuracy.

The Model 1250 is available in 65 mm scale lengths, while the Model 1255 comes in 150 mm scale lengths. The rotameters are configured with a standard control valve on the inlet, the valves and fittings are 316 stainless steel, and the O-rings and seals are Viton fluoroelastomer.