Hydraulic Hose Cleaning
Hydraulic Hose Cleaning – Maintenance, Check-ups, & Prevention
It may seem like a strange comparison, but a common kitchen tip my mother taught me when I was young applies to hydraulic hose cleaning. I used to wonder why she would wash newly purchased dishes before she put them away. That seemed kind of silly to me at the time because, after all, they were brand new! But when I asked her why she did that she stated matter-of-factly that, “You never know where those dishes have been!”
She was right, of course. From manufacturing to shipping to display on the store shelves, those dishes had plenty of opportunities to collect dust and germs and be handled by any number of people. The same principle applies to the fluid power industry, in particular with hydraulic hose cleaning.
Over the years, a great deal of time and attention has been placed on the importance of keeping hydraulic oil clean. As a result, a vast number of studies and articles have been written on oil filtration. Anyone worth his or her salt now knows that oil needs to be clean to obtain optimum equipment performance. But do you know what happens to clean oil after it passes through dirty lines?
Surprisingly, comparatively little has been said about the importance of cleaning hydraulic lines. In fact, one of the most frequent comments that hose distributors make is, “The hose is new—it’s already clean!”
But this couldn’t be farther from the truth. The idea that “new” equals “clean” is a big misconception. In fact, very few hose manufacturing facilities incorporate any type of cleaning methods in their fabrication processes. Residual mandrel lubrication would be bad enough but there are multiple ways that hydraulic hose just gets dirtier and dirtier as it travels from manufacturer, to distributor, and finally, to the end user: