Archives for May 2018

Employee Spotlight: Dan Lang

Meet Dan Lang, Quality and Engineering Manager. Dan is responsible for quality of repair, customer specifications, QA process and procedures, technical data, training and Account Manager support.

Dan Lang

Dan has been in the motor business since 1973, working at General Electric, Westinghouse, Eastern Electric and DMS Electric. Dan came to Decatur Industrial Electric five years ago, and is a member of the company’s leadership team.

When asked what his favorite part of the job was, Dan responded: “It’s satisfying to put a plan together and watch employees apply their knowledge to produce a professional and functional product.”

When not at work, Dan likes to camp, spend time in the woods, canoe, fish, and “tinker” around with things.

Pumps: Tip of the Week

Have you ever heard that water and electricity don’t mix? If so, then the title “submersible pump motor” must sound like a bad idea. However, it is a very common application for electric motors Submersible Pump Test Station in a variety of industries. Given the fact that the motor and most of the power cables are under water or something similar to water, your approach to acceptance criteria may need to be tweaked a little from your normal acceptance criteria for electric motors designed to operate in dry environments. Manufacturer’s recommended guidelines for continued operation of submersible pumps/motors include very broad tolerances which would suggest trending as a preferred approach to evaluating insulation integrity and reliability.

Unlike more standard applications of motors where access to the motor connection box is possible for troubleshooting, access to the motor connection box of a submerged pump/motor becomes difficult, if not impossible. This dramatically increases the importance of sound quality control testing of the motor and power cables separately prior installation. Submersible pumps are always subject to condensation within the pump seals and water jacket. The fluid surrounding the cables and insulation creates a vast parallel conductor which lowers the overall insulation resistance-to-ground and substantially increases the overall capacitance-to-ground. The resistance-to-ground values often do not reach the minimum values allowed by the IEEE Standards.

Finally, the Submersible Wastewater Pump Association (www.SWPA.org) suggests that a new motor installed in a wet well with cap and cable assembly installed can go as low as 2Mohms to ground for continued operation. As always experience and historical comparison should be guiding factors in your decision as to when low is too low.

Meet Jeremy Blankenship, Machinist

Jeremy Blankenship is one of our talented machinists – but he refers to himself as a problem solver!

Jeremy has been with D.I.E. going on six years. He still finds each day different and rewarding.

“I like to build things from scratch. I get to make things no one has around anymore. It’s very rewarding.”

When not at work, Jeremy uses his skills working on cars. He is married and has a six year old boy.