3 Primary Benefits of Electrification for OEMs

Hydraulic systems and fluid power has long been equated with heavy machinery and robust equipment. But innovations in electronic controls have continued to allow for more and more equipment to swap out hydraulic components for electric and there are numerous benefits to OEMs that do so.

Reducing Maintenance

In certain situations, avoiding contamination of any kind is paramount. That extends to unavoidable leaks and spills when working with hydraulic oil. In that instance, electrification is not only helpful, but necessary. However, reducing maintenance and clean up time is beneficial in every industry. Using an electronic power source, such as variable frequency drives, as opposed to a hydraulic system eliminates the potential cost of oil leaks, significantly reduces maintenance cost and time, and perhaps most importantly, significantly reduces the error and variability of a hydraulic system.

Decreasing Room for Error

Errors in a hydraulic control system are inevitable. And in numerous applications, precision is of the utmost importance. By moving to an electrically controlled system, you can eliminate hysteresis and significantly decrease margin of error for your machine’s functions. For example, by utilizing digital CAN encoders, as opposed to analog sensors, we were able to make the machine at least 20 times more accurate, for a relatively minimal cost. And OEMs can much more easily repeat an accurate machine function by utilization programmable location preset. Similar to the way you would save a seat position in your car, an operator can save a machine’s exact position. Then when using that same function again, he can drive the machine and it will automatically stop in the saved position, ultimately decreasing the amount of time spent on each move.

Increasing Scalability

Not only can you increase efficiency for the end user, but this type of system can be much more efficiently designed as well. For example, in that same system, we utilized a standard controller, an MC43, and efficient electrical harnessing within each corner tower of the lift system that can be plugged into a variety of other systems. Schematically, this kind of set up can be drawn and adjusted much faster than a hydraulic system. By developing a base electrical program, engineers can simply and quickly build off of that to expand the current system. Furthermore, all of this can be done while maintaining the current operator interface and controls, making additional training or product literature unnecessary.