Ipsen Field Service Engineer Craig Ludewig answers frequently asked questions about planning for vacuum furnace preventive maintenance.
Q: How often should we perform preventive maintenance on a vacuum furnace?
A: We recommend at least one preventive maintenance visit every year for each furnace. It’s important to schedule these visits regularly – a scheduled preventive maintenance call is always better for your workflow than an unscheduled outage.
Q: How far in advance should I schedule an Ipsen preventive maintenance service call?
A: Planning your preventive maintenance service call at least 60 days in advance will help you get a preferred day and time for the visit. You can even schedule your next preventive maintenance visit with your Ipsen Field Service Engineer at the end of each visit.
Q: What questions should I be prepared to answer at the time of scheduling the preventive maintenance visit?
A: One of the things we’ll do on the phone call is try to determine the scope of the visit. Are there scheduled maintenance items that we need to complete when we visit? For example – is it time to clean the diffusion pump, or would it be sufficient to simply perform a standard oil change and replace the O-rings? Have you had any alarms or recipe errors? Are there any notable changes to the hot zone you’d want us to inspect? Are you dealing with any problems with your leak rate, or are parts showing discoloration?
I’ll also inquire ahead of time if the furnace will require recalibration or a survey during the visit, to make sure I have the required certification tools.
Any relevant information that you are able to share when scheduling our preventive maintenance visit will help us be prepared to get started quickly and have the right tools for the job.
Q: What resources will I need to have on hand at the time of the visit?
A: This will largely depend on your furnace. The age of the furnace, type of furnace, frequently run recipes, and any notable errors, issues, or damage will all determine the kind of service you should expect. Keeping a good stock of spare parts, essential pump oils, and any documentation from operational issues that may indicate a need for service, are an essential part of making sure your service technician will have what they need to do a thorough job.
Q: What should I expect at the time the Ipsen technician arrives?
A: Typically, when I arrive at a customer’s location, I’ll sit down with the operator or maintenance point of contact and ask a few questions. Typical questions might include: Do you have any current issues with the furnace? Any temperature or nuisance alarms? What is the current leak rate? Do you have any discolored parts or pictures of discolored parts? Have there been any parts that have not met specifications? Are there any parts that have shown distortion or cracks? Are there any issues that occur when pumping down the furnace? Have you noticed any debris on the floor of the hot zone or the lip of the furnace? What concerns do you have that you want me to focus on while I’m here?
Q: What sort of inspections and services should we expect the Ipsen technician to perform during the visit?
A: Customers can expect us to perform an inspection of the hot zone, a pump-down cycle to inspect pump operations, and an inspection of all fluid levels, both oil-based systems as well as gas- and water-based systems. We’ll perform maintenance on consumable and wear items like the door seal, the internal jack panel, the Ductorseal, VRT connections and cables, control cabinet connections, all power feed connections, the gas cooling blower, roughing pump filters, poppet valves, water strainers, and the belts on the roughing and booster pumps.
We will replace any damaged or worn items in the inspection with parts from your inventory, and report to you any parts that require replacement that are not among your spare parts inventory. Often we can help with minor maintenance issues, but we will also inform you when a necessary repair goes beyond the scope of our preventive services. When that happens, we can help you schedule a repair assessment for the specific issues that go beyond preventive services.
Q: How long will it take to complete a typical preventive maintenance service?
A: We can typically complete service within a day’s time, depending on the types of service that are required, the size and type of furnace, and the issues we encounter along the way.
Whether you’re looking for yearly, semiannual, quarterly or monthly service, Ipsen can customize a preventive maintenance program to fit your needs. Our technicians follow a thorough, standardized process using detailed checklists to inspect key failure points and ensure every critical component is properly evaluated. With this deliberate approach, you can trust that your equipment will remain reliable and perform at its best.
To schedule your next Preventive Maintenance visit, contact Ipsen by calling 1-844-Go-Ipsen.