Brooks Instrument Blog

I have to say, this was a fun one to do around the holiday’s. I enjoyed seeing a lot of the guesses coming in for our Guess the Year this Flow Meter was Made blog post. A few thought the answer was in the serial number, but it wasn’t. For a while there I didn’t think anyone was going to get it right. So many people guessed within a  year! But the correct year was …

1954

We had 5 winners that will be receiving a 4GB memory stick in the shape of a Brooks GF40/80 Series mass flow controller/mass flow meter.

Happy New Year everyone!

After posting the blog about Brooks’ history with NASA this morning, I realized that this blog post about our Quantim’s in space must have been mistakenly deleted at some point, so here it is! Enjoy!

Delivering saline solution to a clinic for medical needs … sounds simple enough, right? Not when that clinic is on the International Space Station, the moon or even Mars. Transporting medical fluids that are manufactured on Earth into space is expensive and logistically challenging. NASA Johnson Space Center knew there had to be a way to manufacture medical fluids in space to alleviate the transportation problems and to make spacecraft more self sufficient, so they called on the microgravity science expertise and spaceflight hardware development know-how of Cleveland, OH based NASA Glenn Research Center and ZIN Technologies, Inc.

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…

We always like to take the opportunity to share our customer success stories. Here’s one from the land Down Under where Brooks worked with Measurement Plus Pty. Ltd. to install a new gas mixing system at a research institute in Melbourne.

Researchers at the institute were using N2, CO, CO2 and Ar to stabilize a reaction chamber. However, at some point during the process, they wanted the ability to flow in a mixture of these gases. At the time, the institute was using older Brooks thermal mass flow meters inside a self-designed panel. The panel and its components were about 30 years old, rusted and looked like a bird’s nest. 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.

This has been a product that we have been working on and perfecting on over the past several months and I’m extremely excited to finally formally launch the new GF40 and GF80 thermal mass flow controller and flow meter! These mass flow controllers provide outstanding performance, reliability and flexibility in many gas flow measurement and control applications. One of the best features of this new mass flow controller is the patented 4th generation MultiFlo gas and range configurability. MultiFlo programming is simple and fast – a new gas and range can be programmed under 60 seconds plus the device can be programmed without removing it from service or disconnecting the device from any process or tool control system.

The GF40/GF80 Series mass flow controllers features fast sub one second settling times and corrosion-resistant Hastalloy sensor tube for long-term stability. The superior valve technology provides minimum leak-by, maximum turndown and fast response which reduces overall gas panel cost and increases throughput. Additionally, the measurement accuracy of every device is verified using traceable primary calibration standards.

Want to learn more? Download the datasheet or contact your local sales engineer.

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…

Brooks is excited to announce that customers can now control up to 30 mass flow meters / mass flow controllers at the same time with the new Brooks Smart Interface (BSI) 0260 software and tabletop hardware module. This Windows®-based software application expands your control and monitoring capabilities for Brooks’ thermal mass flow meters and controllers.

The BSI 0260 eliminates the need for multiple secondary electronics boxes. This will help you save space, simplify monitoring and reduce overall costs in lab and research environments.

Read more…