Make protecting your engines a PRIORITY!

 

Air filters have an important role in protecting your equipment’s engine from harmful particles and pollutants. If your fleet is not well-maintained, these particles can get into the engine and severely affect the engine’s performance. Therefore, it is vital for your machines to maintain the health of these filters by replacing them before they get worse. You should make sure that this should be a priority to you as an equipment owner.

 

What practices create these bad air filters? What are you doing wrong that could be fixed?

 

The environment plays a huge role in how dusty an engine can get, which should be taken into consideration when planning out your maintenance services. Many construction or mining sites tend to dig up loads of particulate matter than can clog your air filters easily, especially if they are running most of the day. So, in theory, if you are going to be operating in these fields, an important note to take is the quality of your air filters. A bad quality filter will most certainly get clogged faster than a quality one.

 

Finally, moving away from the physical aspects of your engine’s air filter, if you are increasing the time in between services this can also affect how bad your filters can get. Make sure you are maintaining your engine’s lifeline in a timely manner so you can cut unwanted downtime.

 

Let’s look at what can happen to your equipment if your air filters become “bad”.

 

Machine air filters embodied in the engine.

 

Disadvantages of neglected air filters

 

There are several detrimental effects that can bestow upon your equipment if your air filters end up getting clogged and overused. Looking at these effects, they all affect the efficiency of your fleet and will cost you time and money that can be used to ensure business performance and profitability. Don’t let your air filter cost thousands of dollars a year.

 

  1. Decreased horsepower – if your filter gets clogged, it will disrupt the airflow within the internal combustion engine which is supposed to create better acceleration for your vehicles. With this, the HP will end up decreasing without proper maintenance.
  2. Mileage reduction – Your engine will start consuming more fuel if your air filter becomes clogged, so make sure to replace your dirty filters to improve gas mileage by as much as 10%.
  3. Engine damage – Dust and dirt that gets into your internal combustion engine component can be severely damaged over time, which can end up costing you thousands of dollars for replacement.

 

How often you should change your air filters

 

It’s best to start by checking with your owner’s manual due to the manufacturer’s recommendations, as various equipment may want you to change the filters after different mileage. But as we all know, this is only a recommendation and doesn’t consider the various demanding conditions of things like the environment or operation hours.

 

Consider any extreme conditions such as dust storms, the quality of your air filter and how this may affect its life, as well as the model of your vehicle (lighter vehicles may require an earlier filter replacement). These may create shorter periods of servicing that you wouldn’t usually think of.

 

Unfortunately, figuring out service intervals can be difficult. This is why we at Senzit recommend scrapping the whole idea of guesswork when it comes to the health of your engines and investing in technology to do the monitoring for you. Predictive maintenance services such as the Senzit sensor can give you an easy-to-use mobile monitoring overview of your entire fleet including the health of your filters, the location of each machine, and other vital engine data. We do this all conditionally, rather than in a time-based manner.

 

But why is condition-based monitoring better than time-based, and how can this help my fleet?

 

Mechanic inspecting a truck's body (AIR FILTERS)

 

Condition-based vs. time-based monitoring

 

Before we dive into how condition-based monitoring is better, let’s start with a quick definition of what condition-based monitoring is. Here’s how Inspectioneering explains things…

 

Condition Based Monitoring (CBM) is a type of predictive maintenance that involves using sensors to measure the status of an asset over time while it is in operation. The data collected can be used to establish trends, predict failure, and calculate the remaining life of an asset.

 

Instead of being reactive to equipment emergencies as they show up, considering the actual state of your equipment help can help you become proactive in your maintenance. By acting like an alert and notifying you of potential problems, a proactive strategy will reveal the underlying problem behind your equipment issues by showing you the health and lifespan of your filters without having to go into the engine yourself.

 

Software-powered condition-based monitoring provides data that isn’t limited to a technician’s knowledge. And even if you do have highly trained technicians…it’s simply inefficient (and virtually impossible) to allocate technician hours toward constantly checking equipment for maintenance issues. This is a perfect reason to invest in software that isn’t inhibited by a busy schedule – it’s practically self-sufficient, giving you the continuous monitoring that your machines need.

 

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