HydraForce Insider Blog

For over 25 years, HydraForce has produced the highest quality cartridge valves in the industry while providing exemplary customer service. Despite the slide in US manufacturing over the last two decades, HydraForce has defied the odds and flourished in an unstable manufacturing climate. For the 25th anniversary of HydraForce, we decided to interview our Founder and President, Jim Brizzolara, CFO Joe Reifenberg, and VP of Sales and Marketing, Tony Casale to get a history lesson on what it took to succeed in this market, and what they see in the future for HydraForce:

Torque is the combination of tangential force acting at a distance from the axis of rotation. Proper torque is absolutely necessary if you want optimal performance from your valves. Proper torque prevents your cartridge valve from backing out under high pressures/high cycles, ensures proper operation of the valve's spool and prevents leakage. However, you must take caution when applying torque to a valve as over-zealous torque is one of the more common start-up or post-service issues (along with contamination, which was discussed in a previous post).

How many times have you dialed in your Proportional Valve Driver to perfection only to find everything out of whack the next time you use the machine? If this sounds familiar, then you have probably experienced the effects of temperature-induced coil variations coupled with the use of a Voltage Controller that lacks current feedback. Although there are other factors that can cause performance variations, using the wrong driver in particular will cause major issues (if you need a little background on this subject click here). So, if you are tired of experiencing headaches over inconsistent or unrepeatable proportional function control, consider the following.

Daniel Bernoulli – this 18th century Swiss mathematician – has left quite the impact on the modern fluid power industry. One of his more popular discoveries is known as the Bernoulli Principle. This principle states that an increase in a fluid's speed decreases its pressure. If this is true, and we know it is, then the opposite must also be true: that a decrease in a fluid's speed increases its pressure. This principle applies to both the lifting of a wing on an airplane, as well as the lifting of a cartridge valve poppet.

I think everyone is familiar with the term “you can’t get blood from a stone.” This directly relates to the lack of system performance when under-sized sensing valves are used in a load sensing circuit. Several times a year we receive calls from people stating that they can’t seem to get the required or anticipated flow out of a valve or a particular leg of their circuit.