Device Enables Less-Frequent Oil Changes
The answer Fleming found was the OilMate product from Engineered Machined Products Inc. (EMP) of Escanaba, Mich. OilMate has an interesting development history. A large yacht owner had white carpeting in his yacht, and whenever the engine oil was changed, some would wind up on the carpet, which upset the owner’s wife. The owner asked for a system that would never need another oil change. The engine’s original equipment manufacturer (OEM) approached EMP, which designed the OilMate to address this specific problem (Figure 3).
3. Reduce the oil change interval. Biweekly oil changes are neither practical nor efficient for remote gen-sets. That frequency changed about a year ago, when Tarpon Energy Services Ltd. of Calgary, Alberta, a diesel engine rental company, started using OilMate from Engineered Machined Products Inc. Oil changes are now done once every 2,000 hours (12 weeks) rather than every two weeks. Courtesy: Engineered Machined Products Inc.
The OilMate concept is elegant in its simplicity. With the OilMate, a small portion of the used engine oil is continually removed from the engine and burned in the fuel as productive energy. The OilMate then adds a little bit of fresh oil back into the sump to replace what was burned.
"That way the engine is continually running on fresh oil, the additives package is continually refreshed, and you never have to remove and dispose of the old oil," explained Bob Vardigan, EMP’s director of sales. "A traditional oil bypass filtration unit does extend the oil’s life, though not as much as the OilMate, and when it reaches the end of life, the oil is old and dirty, the additive package has been depleted, and you still have to get rid of the oil."
The OilMate initially was utilized for marine diesels and then began being used as an OEM and aftermarket product for over-the-road trucks, especially in North America and Australia. From there the product expanded to off-road vehicles, including the U.S. Army’s eight-wheel-drive Stryker armored combat vehicles. Finally, it started being deployed for remote generator sets. With all markets combined, there are now about 40,000 OilMates in use worldwide (Figure 4).
4. OilMate in operation. Here the OilMate provides protection on a diesel generator in a mining operation (top), on a diesel generator used for powering surveillance equipment (second), on a diesel engine in an Army vehicle (third), and on a remote-mounted oil filter on an engine used in a remote telecommunications station (bottom). Courtesy: Engineered Machined Products Inc.
Because OilMate had already been tested by Cummins on the engines run by Tarpon, Fleming decided to try it out. "The system is capable of going 2,000 hours without any filter changes whatsoever, and if you change the filters at that time, the oil in the reservoirs can last 4,000 hours," he says. "It also extends the service life of the equipment, so we got a nice bonus."
— Contributed by Drew Robb, a Los Angeles – based writer specializing in engineering and technology issues.
Email
Comments
Print
Reuse
