Crofton Mechatronics Steaming Weekend

Whilst respecting the Grade 1 listed nature of the site we have, over the last four years, been implementing a 21^st century data capture system to collect information allowing us to monitor the performance and health of both our engines. The general term for this process is Mechatronics and it covers all aspects of machine health and performance. The aim is to provide analytical data that we can use to spot subtle changes in the measured values allowing us to fine tune our care and maintenance plans.

Already it has provided us with an early detection of a problem that could have proved catastrophic had it remained undetected. This year we have been focussed on pump efficiency, we do after all move around 12 tonnes of water a minute with each of our two pumps, and making preliminary investigations to ensure that we get maximum efficiency from our hand fired boiler.

Building on the success of last year’s Mechatronics event we plan to have lectures and discussions throughout both of our steaming days. This gives every visitor an opportunity to get to the heart of the operation of these machines and the information we collect. We cannot pretend that this is a wholly new idea, our Victorian engineering ancestors understood the benefits but their driver was to get maximum work out of every shovel of coal and less on machine health.

Their understanding of the engine operation was excellent but they could not collect data continuously and had no method of post collection analysis that would help with diagnosing issues in progress. They would be in awe of what we can achieve today.

The data we collect is available to institutions for ongoing analysis. We already collaborate with world class universities, schools and industry and we will be happy to discuss sharing information for educational purposes.