What kind of service calls are you doing involving hydraulics and pneumatics?

[CFEST]

The class I teach requires me to teach hydraulics and pneumatics as it relates to cooking equipment. Outside of the Taylor clamshell and beverage fountain syrup pumps, what models of equipment are you seeing out there that incorporates hydraulics or pneumatics that cooking equipment techs are asked to repair?

[VanMan812]

Some tilt skillets and kettles have hydraulic lifts.


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[BadBozo2315]

(Random thought included)

Not really cooking, but the occational dish machine uses peristalic pumps for detergent and rinse aid delivery.

Fryers use a powerful pump to filter hot oil under pressure.

The folks on commercial production lines would be much more exposed to hydraulic or pnuematic thingamabobs.

Pneumatic controls are used to prove positive air flow, say for a burner, and sense differences in air density of combi blower wheels.

I hope you incorporate overt general training on how stepper motors function.

How about figuring out proper pump or fan rotation direction in the absence of a nice arrow.

Explain how important the cleaning of the squirrel cage fan blade surfaces are in combustion blowers.

Hey, would not dish machine wash pumps be hydraulic? Discuss risks from cavitation damage if running backwards.

[Mike19]

If you work at McDonald's they have some pneumatic stuff.

The older Ram Fry Hoppers had a lot of pneumatics, but most of those are gone.

The automated beverage system has pneumatics for the lift arm, grabber, and ice gate.

The Taylor clamshell grills have pneumatics.

The Taylor frappe machines have pneumatic pumps and the pinch valves are pneumatic.

[ECtofix]

I’m a former field technician for fifteen years, but now working in-house. In addition to all versions of food service establishments to support (casual dining, QSRs, room service, bar and hot beverage...with obligatory warewashers of many sizes) - we have a commissary on property.

Aside from what’s been mentioned, I've found that pneumatically operated equipment is primarily found in high volume food production facilities which require some form of automation.

I know very little about full-fledged food factories, but from my own experience, places like our “commissary” are still a possible (but rare) place any field tech may be called upon to service. Usually only when the equipment is still under warranty.

Our commissary packages/portions prepared products as ordered by the restaurants we support. Things like bakery products of all types, cooked and bagged soups, stews, sauces or side items, smoked and par-cooked sliced or shredded meat products, batches of fruit and veggie salads or platters…and a long list of other things.

So, a commissary may not be a factory, but they're not taking orders from a customer sitting right out there in a dining room either. Commissaries prepare food-to-order for a immediately local chain of restaurants.

Whether a factory...or a commissary - within an operation of either scale, there's going to be personnel employed on-site who have a more intimate knowledge of the equipment and can respond IMMEDIATELY - sometimes several times a day - to fix it. Some of that equipment is generally just larger versions of equipment found in your normal food establishments...with some exceptional features thrown in. THEN..there IS some REALLY exceptional stuff. For instance, we have a bakery unit that nobody else in the USA has (or so I was told as of 2014).

Some of our equipment requiring compressed air to function:

• In our bakery, a cheescake slicer made by FoodTools.
• In our hot kitchen, food prepared in our cook/chill kettles is pumped into plastic bags by a Cleveland metering filling station and the bag is sealed by a staple/clipper unit made by Tipper Tie.

These are just some examples. We have other stuff and I'm sure there's other commercial food equipment out there using pneumatics.

FYI - along these levels of food production, below is a copy of the Cleveland Cook-Chill specifications book:

[CFEST]

Thank you for the reply and the manual. I will add some of it to my pneumatic training slides to explain the applications.

[Turtleman]

Worked for bakery industrial bakery a lot of pneumatics and hydraulic equipment on hand . From


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[Turtleman]

Production and packaging equipment . Look up Autobake serpentine systems, Fedco cake depositors.


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[ECtofix]

CFEST,

I meant to share this way back when you started three threads for input. Way back at some point, I had compiled links to old threads on the topic of getting into food equipment service. You may have already seen it. If not, then here it is again. Might be some insightful stuff for your curriculum. Read through this entire thread, then back up and go through all the ones I linked to in post #7:

http://hvac-talk.com/vbb/showthread....hlight=ectofix