Portable air-powered viewing probe, powered by maxon motors
Portable air-powered viewing probe, powered by maxon motors
Keywords: Probes, Thermal power plants, Boilers
Have you ever wondered what it looks like inside a furnace or a kiln, a boiler or a glass tank? Inside a system where the temperature can reach 1,700 degrees, where rocks melt and iron glows white-hot?
Thanks to the Ventus Portable, high-temperature, viewing probe, these mysteries can now be unveiled (Plate 4). Designed and manufactured by Imaging and Sensing Technology and powered by ultracompact maxon motors, the Ventus Portable provides continuous, colour, video images of these spectacular high-temperature processes. Engineers and other specialists can now view activity at the core of thermal power plants, industrial boilers, waste incinerators, cement kilns, glass tanks and steel foundries.
This portable camera is both air-powered and air-cooled. Constructed of high temperature stainless steel, it is designed for continuous operation in industrial processes with temperatures up to 1,700°C and produces high-resolution, colour video pictures using wide-angle viewing.
Plate 4 Inside furnace: the Ventus Portable high-temperature viewing probe
While it is specifically designed for temporary inspection of heating processes and refractory conditions, it can also be permanently installed.
At the heart of the Ventus Portable is the tiny maxon EC32, an 80-watt brushless motor, which is a mere six centimetres long and weighs just 260 grammes. It is typical of maxon motors' very small but super-efficient products. The EC32, used here as a generator, is directly coupled to a 160-watt air motor. Compressed air or nitrogen is supplied to the viewing probe via a single,quick-release coupling. A fraction of this essential cooling air is then diverted to the air motor, causing it and the EC32 motor to rotate and generate a three-phase voltage output. After rectification, smoothing and regulation,+12Vdc is available to power the viewing probe's camera module, lens temperature display and voltage output display.
Imaging and Sensing Technology (IST) felt that conventional brushed DC motor technology would not be suitable, due to high brush noise and their relatively low MTBF. According to maxon motors it was its ability to provide small,inexpensive, three-phase motors at short notice which enabled IST to move the project forward and quickly identify the optimum motor for the application.
Details available from: maxon motors uk ltd. Tel: +44 (0) 1189 733337; Fax:+44 (0) 01189 737472; E-mail: sales@maxonmotor.co.uk;Web site: www.maxonmotor.co.uk
