News from Westin Drives

Here at Westin Drives, we’ve recently achieved the ISO 14001:2015, an internationally recognised Environmental Management Certification.
 
We feel this compliments the naturally environmentally conscious aspects of our industry such as our minimal waste in machinery repair, retrofit and efficiency upgrades.
 
ISO 14001:2015 specifies the requirements for an environmental management system that we can use to enhance our environmental performance.
 
Consistent with our environmental policy, the intended outcomes of the environmental management system include:

• enhancement of environmental performance;
• fulfilment of compliance obligations;
• achievement of environmental objectives.

Thursday 17th November saw the return of the 2022 AEMT Awards. Of the seven award categories, Westin Drives were delighted to be shortlisted as a finalist for the Contribution to Skills & Training Award. 
 
What you might not know is that Adam Daffern, one of our highly-skilled Electrical Engineers, was also nominated as a finalist for the Rising Star Award.
 
Since Adam joined us in 2018 part-way through his HNC, he’s been an integral member of our team in many ways. After supporting Adam in his completion of an Apprenticeship and University studies, the result of his hard work and dedication was a First-Class Honours Degree.
 
Adam’s journey of progression has seen him involved in the research and implementation of control system remote access solutions, providing our customers with outstanding support and developing two junior Apprentices in his department.
 
All that’s left to say is congratulations to all of the finalists - yet again, it was a fantastic event and a great opportunity to celebrate many achievements within the Electrical and Mechanical industry.

On Thursday 17th November Westin Drives will be attending the 2022 AEMT Awards - a fantastic event celebrating achievements within the Electrical and Mechanical industry. 
 
Seven award categories have been chosen to demonstrate excellence in the Electrical and Mechanical trades. Here at Westin Drives, we’re delighted to have been shortlisted as a finalist for the Contribution to Skills & Training Award. 
 
Our story is a simple one: we identified a lack of experience in the sector like many industries and needed to come up with a solution ourselves.

​In the main, this is based on:

• a strong apprentice recruitment policy,
• specialist in-house training,
• and formal engineering qualifications through a high quality local provider.

​In addition, we source training from our Manufacturer partners WEG, SKF, Sprint Electric, Radicon and LENZE for specific product training.

So far this has worked well for us and we are proud to be recognised for this commitment by the AEMT.

​Here you can see a relatively old 75kw Siemens motor we have repaired for one of our customers in the plastics industry.

The customer complained that the motor was noisy on run down. After it was dismantled and assessed, we found that the grease was degraded and the bearings were showing their age.

The motor was given a thorough service which included the rotor balancing to G2.5 and new SKF bearings fitted. The test run and condition monitoring proved that the motor was returned to a healthy condition following our service.

After a fresh paint job, the motor is now ready to be returned to the customer and re-commissioned.

This is a slip ring motor we have just refurbished and is ready to be dispatched.

​The motor was manufactured by The English Electric Co Ltd. There is no date on it but we estimated around 1960. Despite its substantial size it’s only rated at 45 H.P and when in operation the motor drives a pump.

It’s always a pleasure to work on these motors as they are a piece of British engineering history. It's also very well manufactured - even decades later, with the correct maintenance these motors continue to operate for many years.

These motors were located in a pumping station which was unfortunately flooded – when dismantled, the motors were found to be almost half full of water.

To get the customer back up and running as quickly as possible, we promptly treated all three motors to our comprehensive service.

​The motors are manufactured to WIMES requirements (Water Industry Mechanical and Electrical Specifications) and so the thing that sets these motors apart from standard motors is that the ancillary parts that are fitted need to meet these requirements.

These particular motors had:

• PTC thermistors imbedded in the windings to monitor the temperature of the winding;
• anti-condensation heaters fitted onto the windings;
• temperature sensors fitted in both bearing housings;
• vibration analysis sensors fitted at the D.E and N.D.E; and
• painted in accordance with ISO 12944.

These three motors have passed final inspection and are now ready for dispatch.

If you have a requirement for WIMES motor repairs, Westin Drives can help – please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Here you can see a 315kW ABB motor overhaul that our team completed over the weekend. 
​
The motor, which is from a large quench fan from the glass industry, is part of the customer’s critical equipment which they cannot operate without.

Whilst doing some vibration analysis, we detected higher than acceptable readings.

We scheduled to attend the site and remove the motor on the Friday, service the motor over the weekend and then refit the motor on Monday morning in time for our customer to resume production.

Once the motor was back in production our engineers performed vibration analysis as part of the commissioning process which confirmed that the motor was correctly aligned, balanced and the newly fitted SKF bearings were healthy.

​So, all in all, it was a job well done!

Have you seen the AEMT (The Association of Electrical and Mechanical Trades) “Renew” magazine?

Covering the latest news, innovations, applications and expert opinion, a story on Westin Drives has recently been featured about how a retrofit kept our customer’s Mangle operational.

Find "Retrofit keeps textile firm’s Mangle operational" on page 14.

Here at Westin Drives we are delighted to announce that we are now a Radicon distributor for West Yorkshire and will soon become a stockist and assembly centre.

We are also able to offer an in-house specification and support service, and crucially our assembly service will include emergency fast-builds.

With decades of proven reliability, Radicon, a brand we are proud to work with, are a premier Manufacturer of high quality, standard, modified standard and custom engineered gearboxes.

See here to find out more about Radicon and watch this space for further details.