Dycor General Manager Gilberto Garcia joins Episode 2 of the Stream-Flo of Consciousness podcast to talk partial stroke testing, the ESD-EHX, and less time behind the wheel
A shutdown valve gets one chance to close.
Knowing it will is what Gilberto Garcia, General Manager of Dycor, sat down to talk about with Joel Pelletier, marketing lead for the Stream-Flo Group of Companies, on the second episode of the Stream-Flo of Consciousness podcast. They recorded it right here in our shop.
The conversation centres on the ESD-EHX emergency shutdown valve, the first product Dycor and Stream-Flo built together, and the SmartVue™ controller that runs it.
‘Just a tiny movement’
Partial stroke testing is the headline act. The controller moves the valve about five per cent, then measures how it responds.
It’s not a full close. It’s just a tiny movement. But knowing exactly the reaction on it, in the milliseconds that it takes to create the test, we can determine if the unit is starting to wear out, if it’s starting to get stuck, if it requires maintenance.
Gilberto Garcia, General Manager, Dycor
That turns a surprise into a maintenance call planned weeks ahead. And the valve never has to shut in the well to prove itself.
“Once you close that process, it may take hours, if not days, to restart it,” said Garcia of a full cycle.
‘Think outside the box’
Getting there took a complete redesign. The first SmartVue controller for the ESD was rated Class I, Div 2 and used a touchscreen. Class I, Div 1 doesn’t allow one.
“For explosion-proof environments, you can’t have that touchscreen,” said Garcia. “So we have to think outside the box: how do we now command the unit?”
Less windshield time
Some of these valves sit two or three hours from the nearest road. Remote diagnostics mean a crew drives out when a valve needs them, not to check that it doesn’t.
“It’s been identified that the most hazardous portion of the job is driving,” said Garcia.
‘Be a support’
Gilberto also gave an early look at news that has since gone public. Dycor is now an Official Teltonika Value-Added Reseller.
“We have been working with them for a year, more than a year now, and proven to them that we support the product, understand the products,” said Garcia of the partnership.
In practice, that means we pick the Teltonika router or gateway that suits the application, help the customer put it in, and troubleshoot it with them if something goes wrong.
Which is more than a box off the shelf.
Read the announcement: Dycor receives prestigious Teltonika Value-Added Reseller title.
The episode also covers taking products built to CSA and UL standards into IECEx, ATEX, and CE markets, why our controllers sit at the edge of the system, our partners FreeWave and dataTaker, and connecting to the systems customers already own instead of replacing them.
Gilberto says there’s more on the way. “We’re now working on new products and new ideas,” he said.
We’ll have him back when we can show them.
Watch every episode on the Stream-Flo of Consciousness podcast page.