Roots Blower Help Line: Blower Ingesting Product

Blowers are only designed to move air (gas), not solids. Overtime ingesting product can cause major damage to the blower.

This unit has ingested product for quite some time. Most likely failure to filter the inlet air caused contamination.

The product is now lodged inside of the impeller lobes and has abraded the tips and ends of both impellers. The wear of the impeller tips will reduce the efficiency of the blower. Where is the product going once it passes through the blower? Is the silencer starting to clog?

Ingesting-Product-2Impellers are worn from exposure to product (fly ash) in process. Caught early, most impellers are repairable by welding and machining. For a blower in vacuum service, contamination is a potential problem that might only be caught once you see the product exiting the discharge pipe!

For a pressure blower, contamination of the blower could be from running the blower backwards, or a failed/missing check valve. Introduction of material in the blower can also damage the blower by causing an inertia event:

  • Spinning and then suddenly stopping
  • Resting and then suddenly starting
  • In both cases, energy can be directed in ways that are bad for the blower

An inertia event is usually when a blower is in operation and it comes to a sudden stop.  The force of the sudden stop/slow-down is often very detrimental to the blower, i.e., bent and/or broken shafts, twisted drive shafts, cracked headplates and cylinders.  Also, a blower can be spinning backwards from a faulty check valve and then be brought online, which applies enormous forces to the drive shaft as it has to overcome the inertia of the impeller spinning in the opposite direction.

Ingesting-Product-3The flyash has collected inside of the blower due to insufficient air filtration. The build-up on the back of the flange and at the headplate is common when material travels through a blower. The impellers will erode faster than the cylinder. Severe contamination of the blower can cause grooves at the cylinder headplate joints

Root Blower Help Line: Schedule Maintenance

This summer remember to schedule maintenance so you can take a vacation, not your blower!

As summer comes into full effect, the conditions that your blowers operate under could be changing too, and this needs to be taken into consideration before you go on vacation. Make sure to have a clear schedule that other coworkers would be able to follow while you are away.
Your blower is a simple machine that just moves air, and it needs you to allow it do its work by:

  •  Changing your air filter before it is clogged
    – Call us for replacement air filters
    – Ask about restriction gauges to determine the best time to change your filters
  •  Aligning your drives and properly tensioning your belts
    – Call for belts, sheaves, bushings, and tension gauges
    – Ask about field service and training
  • Giving your process air a clear path to do the work it’s designed to do!
    – All valves fully open? They should be…
    – Pressure relief valve working? We have them…
    – Pressure gauges working? We have these too!

A quick review of your blower process could catch a problem before a breakdown!

Remember: air in, air processed, and air out!

Roots Blower Help Line: Ram X Repair

Here we have some recent repairs to a 770 RAM X.

A larger amp draw and trip outs from the motor indicated that the blower was having a problem. Once the blower was taken apart, R&M service technicians found a bad bearing had overheated and the inner bearing race began to fuse to the drive shaft. Because of the bad bearing the impeller end was grinding on the headplate and high friction, heat, and pressure caused detonation and deformation. These problems were probably caused by insufficient oil maintenance. We urge our customers to set up a proper maintenance schedule for oil, checking air filters, and monitoring instruments.

For further reading please refer to our other articles:

How to Lubricate a Roots Blower

bearing fused to shaft
bearing fused to shaft
bad bearing
bad bearing
bearing detonation
bearing detonation
grinding on the head plate
grinding on the head plate

Roots Blower Help Line: Truck Blower Repair Seal Leak

Maintenance on a Trinado 1112 DVJ Vacuum Blower

Last week our Service Technicians worked on this Truck Blower Repair to fix a seal leak.

The Hydro Excavator truck is used in many industries such as wastewater treatment, mining, and oil fields for digging and excavating. The truck has a Howden Roots Truck Blower – Trinado 1112 DVJ Vacuum Blower. The service team performed routine maintenance and lubrication on the blower. Silencers were taken off to access to the blower to fix the seal leak. R&M Equipment’s evaluation found a clogged air filter on the truck, which we replaced. Please visit our Service page for more info.

Truck-Blower-Repair.v1