It’s official! Brooks Instrument has launched its online store. Now we can give customers quick and easy access to the Brooks family of products. Best of all, we’re offering free shipping on all orders within the domestic United States.
Currently, the store offers the 2500 Series plastic tube flow meters (rotameters) for purchase. In the coming months, we’ll be adding pressure gauges, pressure transducers, mass flow controllers, mass flow meters and more.
Our goal is to get Brooks’ products into the hands of customers as efficiently as possible to support your application needs. So, stop by the online store and check back to see what’s new in the coming months!
It’s official! Brooks Instrument has launched its online store. Now we can give customers quick and easy access to Brooks family of products. Best of all, we’re offering free shipping on all orders within the domestic United States.
Currently, the store offers the Brooks 2500 Series plastic tube rotameters for purchase. In the coming months, we’ll be adding Brooks’ pressure gauges, pressure transducers, mass flow controllers and more.
Our goal is to get Brooks’ products into the hands of customers as efficiently as possible to support your application needs. So, stop by the online store and check back to see what’s new in the coming months!
We just launched yet another new website, this time for our buddies over at Key Instruments, which is a division of Brooks Instrument. We redesigned www.KeyInstruments.com with enhanced company and product information, a variety of technical support options, as well as direct access to Key Instruments’ new e-commerce site, www.KIDirect.com.
With a simple, updated design, KeyInstruments.com is easy to navigate, including upgraded search functions to find documentation, products, FAQs and more. Updated content includes hundreds of data sheets and instruction manuals.
We made sure to think of the users of KeyInstrument.com as we developed the new site. Our goal is to provide the best products and services for our consumers, and this website supports that, allowing users to easily access all aspects of the company, from information about specific products, to technical support, to requesting a quote.
Check it out and let me know what you think.
A project that has been near and dear to my heart over the past several weeks is now finally complete, and we have launched www.KIDirect.com for Key Instruments, which is a division of Brooks Instrument. The new site allows customers to quickly and efficiently purchase select standard flow meters 24 hours a day and have the product shipped out the very next business day.
This is an exciting step for us … venturing into selling our quality flow meters direct to customers through KIDirect.com. We’ve found that many customers are looking for a simple way to order standard flow meters, and KIDirect.com will now satisfy these customers. We look at this website as just another way of expanding our customer service.
KIDirect.com is organized so buyers can easily find the flow meter they’re looking for. Buyers can search by product series if they know the model, or they can search by fluid type, pipe connection size, scale length or full-scale flow rate. The website is also optimized for mobile e-commerce using the iPhone and other smartphones.
Check it out!
The first attempts to replace the horse as the primary mode of transportation involved burning wood to create steam to drive a steam engine. If the new crop of biotechnology and renewable energy companies realize their dreams we will once again be fueling our transportation and even using chemicals created from wood cellulose and other plants. Genetic engineering which has been the catalyst in the revolution of drug and food development is now being used to tackle our need for renewable fuels. I had experience, while still a student in the late 1970s, on the potential of enzymes to breakdown cellulose into sugar the basic building block for chemicals. I even had dreams of creating a cellulose driven economy but with oil costing only $20/bbl, I soon realized it would be difficult to compete. The catalyst driving the current group of bio energy hopefuls is the need to find renewable fuels which are better for the environment. Three conversion technologies are actively being funded. Read more…
We are focusing on improving our order fulfillment process because we know it will result in faster lead times and more satisfied customers. I want to provide a “peek” into our lean manufacturing journey, share my personal experiences and include a photo or two of our rotameter assembly lines.
The improvement process starts by defining in great detail how we do things today. It is difficult to change a process without totally understanding what you are doing today. Once this first step is completed a cross functional team reviews each step of the process and as a group looks for areas of improvement. I have participated in these group sessions and they are very powerful due to the free exchange of ideas. Each suggestion is noted, debated and usually implemented. Possible ideas can be as simple as organizing the workspace which reduces operator movement and “travel time” to adding new test equipment or assembly fixtures.
Read more…
I’m asked this question pretty regularly. Rod guides are used to correct for a side effect of the way a variable area flow meter works. We know that a variable area flow meter’s measurement tube is narrowest at the bottom, and gradually increases in diameter as it reaches the top of the tube. When flow passes through the measurement tube, the float stops at an “equilibrium” point that shows the user the flow rate through the meter.
Flow-savvy readers out there know there’s a bit more to variable area meter operation than that, but I’ll leave those details for future posts. As the diameter of the measurement tube increases, there is a point when the diameter of the tube becomes too large in relation to the diameter of the float. At that point the float will no longer just move up and down, but can also move side to side. A rod guide holds the float in the center of the measurement tube to prevent side to side movement. As an added bonus, the rod guide introduces a small amount of friction against the float’s vertical movement. This extra friction stabilizes the float and makes the flow meter easier to read.
Do you find yourself trying to guess the actual flow rate because of a bouncing float? Can you hear the float banging around inside one (or several) of your flow meters? Specifying a variable area flow meter with a rod guide is an easy way to overcome these problems.
A rotameter (variable area meter) is a flow meter that measures volumetric flow of liquids and gases. The technique for measuring flow is accomplished by a freely moving float finding equilibrium in a tapered tube. The flow rate is then read from either a scale next to the tube or a scale on the tube.
Read more…
