Brooks Instrument Blog

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…

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…

We’re proud to announce that Brooks is the recipient of another award this year. The 2011 Innovation Award from Flow Control magazine joins our Golden Gas Award and Control Readers’ Choice Awards from earlier this year. Read more…

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!

Brooks and Polycontrols Technologies have been working together to support NASA research that will send a new exploratory module to Venus. Polycontrols is integrating Brooks’ SLA series mass flow controllers with a gas mixing system and chamber that NASA will use for materials testing at the John Glenn Research Center in Cleveland.

Sending a new exploration module to Venus’ surface will require NASA to ensure the module and its electronic components can withstand the planet’s harsh environment. The gas mixing system and chamber will simulate high thermal stress and Venus’ corrosive atmosphere to test materials needed to make the new module.

Polycontrols’ team selected Brooks’ SLA series mass flow controllers because it proved that it could accurately produce proper gas concentrations to the parts per million (PPM) precision that NASA needs to achieve in the test chamber.

View the full case study here.

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…

In my last post I talked about UL Listed versus Recognized.  This time we are going to take a look at the IP and NEMA ratings and what they mean.  With this information you should be able to decide what minimum level of protection you need for your application.

Let’s start with the basics.  What does IP and NEMA stand for?  IP stands for ingress protection and NEMA stands for National Electrical Manufacturers Association.  Both IP and NEMA are rating systems for equipment that might be exposed to liquids, rain, ice, corrosion and contaminates such as dust.

An IP number contains two numbers (i.e. IP65) in most instances which relate to the level of protection provided by an enclosure or housing.  The first number relates to protection from solids as follows: Read more…

Thermal mass flow controllers and thermal mass flow meters are used to measure and control the flows of gases. The measuring terminology usually includes words like “standard” or “normal” flow. A standard cubic foot of gas is the same as an actual cubic foot of gas only if the measurements are taken at some standard set of conditions (STP); like 70 degrees F and one atmosphere ambient pressure. If the ambient conditions change, you may never know how much gas you have in a volumetric measuring chamber, but, if you use a device that measures standard cubic feet of gas, you will always know the flow.

Thermal mass flow controllers and meters use a sensor that measures standard units. If you are measuring 30 psi nitrogen at 100 degrees F, the device will indicate the amount of standard cubic feet per minute (SCFM) flowing or it could indicate in standard liters per minute (SLPM). Either way, you can change the actual temperature and the actual pressure and the measuring device will still indicate flow in standard units.

Read more…

Brooks Instrument knows a lot about agency approvals.  If you need a mass flow controller, mass flow meter, or pressure controller for a hose down or hazardous area requirement you came to the right place!  We not only have the approvals, but we can also help you understand which approval is right for your application.  For example, what’s the difference between UL ‘Listed’ and UL ‘Recognized’ and which one is right for my application?

Well the UL Listed products carry the following mark.

This means that the product has been tested by UL to nationally recognized Safety Standards and has been found to be free from reasonably foreseeable risk of fire, electric shock and related hazards in a Division 2 / Zone 2 environment.  The Brooks SLAMF Series thermal mass flow meter/mass flow controller and pressure controllers, and the Quantim IP65 Coriolis mass flow meter/mass flow controller products are all UL listed.

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83% of all instruments used in the chemical process industries (CPI) are being talked to using analog communications. By analog communications, we mean 4-20 milliAmp mainly. But we see 3-15 psi air and 0-5 volt control systems also. Why wouldn’t you use some of those 1’s and 0’s?

Actually, we have no idea just what percent of devices are being operated in the analog mode. 83% just seems like a good guess; although some at Brooks Instrument suggest it is much higher.

When you survey the field devices in your plant, you will find 5 major classes of instruments; flow, temperature, level, pressure, and analyzers (DO, pH, Cl2, etc…).

Read more…