Utilities - Rotec Hydraulics Ltd

Rotec confirmed as LEEA Full Member

Rotec Hydraulics Ltd are thrilled to announce that following a thorough audit they have achieved full membership status with the Lifting Equipment Engineers Association, better known as the LEEA.

LEEA are a respected organisation dedicated to ensuring safety and quality across lifting equipment materials and supplier integrity. LEEA supports the education and quality procedures to ensure that safe practice is the everyday norm.

To become a full LEEA member, Rotec provided evidence of their activities within the lifting equipment industry and underwent a thorough compliance audit where the business’s processes were examined and assessed on their ability to uphold and maintain the exemplary standards required by LEEA.

This thorough membership process ensures that only those who provide the highest-quality products and services can attain a membership.

When using a LEEA member, you can be confident that they are compliant to any and all relevant standards and legislation, competent, and are continually raising the standards of practice.

Quality Systems Manager at Rotec Hydraulics Ltd, Josie Chamberlain, commented,

“It is a fantastic achievement to have been confirmed as full LEEA members. Rotec are highly experienced at hydraulic projects for the lifting equipment industry, including being a well-renowned producer of bespoke hydraulic winch systems.

“We look forward to continuing our work with LEEA, and ensuring we deliver expertly trained staff to all our clients.”

Custom made hydraulic winch system for the utilities sector

Rotec Hydraulics Ltd has recently completed works on a custom made hydraulic winch system for the utilities market.

Fitted to a fleet of National Grid vehicles, these bespoke winches have been designed, built, installed and tested by our in-house team of engineers and include a hydraulic system, electronic control system and mechanical components.

The Capstan winch is specifically designed for fast line speeds and has a 350Kg working load limit with a remote electrical foot pedal operation

Safety features include an integral fail safe static brake and integral dynamic braking.

The Capstan winch drum is made of stainless steel and the winch is deployed on a sliding system to allow the operator to move it from stored position to operational position easily.

National Grid is one of the world’s largest publicly listed utilities focused on transmission and distribution of electricity and gas. They play a vital role in connecting millions of people to the energy they use safely, reliably and efficiently. Rotec has worked with National Grid for several years and are proud of the strong, effective relationship they share.

At Rotec the team work on many different projects. Much of the work undertaken requires the integration of knowledge and skills from across the Rotec team, to deliver all of the elements that make up a client brief. For more information on the services we offer, please click here.

Custom Designed Winching Systems

Rotec have been working with the Utility market for the last 20 years – designing and manufacturing winch systems for overhead line teams throughout the UK. Traditional vehicles such as landrovers were deemed the work horse and industry standard. Working with a number of organisation the challenge to replace the landrover centred on certain replacement vehicles – such as the Isuzu DMAX.

The bespoke system includes the following:

Electro-hydraulic PTO (Power Take Off) for the pump
Custom designed hydraulic manifold assembly, which uses an electronic proportional directional control valve
Dual pressure control which allows for pressure selection
Custom made hydraulic reservoir
Custom electronic control system, including a remote pendant with joystick control as well as a 2nd joystick located in the cab
Integrated electronic hand throttle for the engine
Quality winch and Parker hydraulic hose supplied with pressure test certification which can be traced throughout the Parker network using PTS system

The system operates in two work modes:

Lifting mode: capable of lifting up to 1550 Kg (SWL)
Self – recovery: capable of pulling 3600 Kg

The bespoke system is designed and manufactured completely in-house, fully – tested prior to despatch.

Bespoke Winching System for Polaris 1000 HD ATV

Ever considered how Over Head Line maintenance teams get their tools ‘up’ on to pylons to enable them to carry out their work? One answer is with Rotec Hydraulics’ help.

At Rotec Hydraulics the Team, work on many different projects. Much of the work undertaken requires the integration of knowledge and skills from across the Rotec team, to deliver all of the elements that make up a client brief.

One such brief was to enable these incredibly gutsy all-terrain Polaris 1000 HD Rangers to help Over Head Line maintenance teams access their tools, whilst working off the beaten track and when needed at height.

For one utility company the skilled Rotec team designed, built and installed bespoke hydraulic and electric Capstan Winching Systems to a fleet of all-terrain vehicles, to enable utility staff to ‘winch up’ the items they need, when working at height.

The all-terrain Polaris 1000 HD Rangers are used daily to support overhead line operations in the utilities sector. The low ground compact build of the Polaris is perfect to access difficult to reach areas when repairing or undertaking planned activity in the utility sector. Their confined flatbed behind the cab, is ideal to hold and secure Rotec’s bespoke Hydraulic Power Pack, powering the Capstan Winch. Electricity pylons are by the nature of their role, often positioned off the beaten track and are accessed across all sorts of terrain.

The whole winching system was designed, tested, built and attached to multiple vehicles by Rotec Hydraulics in their large workshop space at the Taunton branch using the skills of the specialist hydraulic Design, Build and Installation team.

The hydraulic and electric winching system ensures when these mighty little vehicles and crew reach challenging locations, they have everything needed to hoist tools up on to a pylon, to carry out overhead cable maintenance and repair work.

When in the middle of nowhere there are times when the utility company over headline maintenance staff will not be beside the winch system to physically push buttons, to engage the winding mechanism. Therefore, when designing the power sources to operate the Capstan Winch, Rotec ensured the Hydraulic Power Packs could be petrol driven, alongside a battery to enable electric start and a remote electric start option for when personnel are perhaps in position up a pylon.

An integrated cooling system and roll cage over the whole Capstan winching system unit adds overall protection to the investment as it is transported to site and used. The complete winching system unit can be fully removed from the vehicle if and when required.

As a further safety measure, Rotec engineers designed and manufactured a specially designed manually lowered ground anchor, to limit the ability of the vehicle to slide when the winch is engaged in more extreme winching situations. The power Capstan winching system is designed to pull up to 350kg.

As part of the design and testing process Rotec also undertook the Finite Element Analysis (FEA) in support of the Lifting Operations & Lifting Equipment Regulations (LOLER). Rotec ensures we provide the additional evidence within our design to ensure the vehicle conversion is strong, reliable and suited to the challenging environments in which it is designed to operate.

The Rotec team is thrilled they enable others to reliably undertake time critical repairs and planned activity, all year round, in any conditions, at any height, to keep key utility services across the country operating.

Are you looking for an alternative option to get something from A to B in a controlled way? Rotec Hydraulics experienced team of Hydraulic, Pneumatic, Mechanical and Electrical engineers can help. Please contact any of our locations across the south west for more information or assistance.

Date: 24/02/2020 Revised Author: Carly Warren

Extreme lifting: Using Rotec winching systems at 500 ft

At the beginning of 2016, we started to work with National Grid, contracted to support the company’s hydraulic, pneumatic and electronic needs alongside the primary project (bespoke winching systems for their fleet of vehicles), and we didn’t have to wait long for a challenging project to come through.

The company was planning a maintenance project in and around of Chepstow, involving the lowering and raising of insulators on the two 500ft high river crossing towers spanning the river Severn, which form part of the national grid and the 21,000 towers owned by the company in the UK.

Chris Land, National Grid’s Equipment and Live Working Overhead Line Engineer supervising the project relates:

“This project has been challenging from the start, not only because of the height of the towers but also because the tower loadings and fittings on these towers are totally unique compared to the rest of the towers on the transmission network. The insulators were last changed in 1969 and we have very limited experience of working on these towers, we have been working from 50 year old drawings and information to develop the procedures necessary to carry out the replacement of the insulators. The primary focus has been to maintain a safe working environment for the linesman carrying out the work to enable the work to be delivered safely and within the timescales. The work was delivered well within the allotted timescales with zero incidents”

Lowering old insulators

Swapping old for new

New insulators lifted into position

Preparations for this project have taken over 6 months, with 6 weeks given to the crew to complete the work on the two 500 ft high towers. Rotec was asked to design and build a bespoke Tower Leg Capstan Winch Assembly for the project, capable of lowering and raising the heavy insulators on a system of ropes.

The assembly consists of three main components: capstan winch, engine drive unit and a reservoir unit. Adrian Derbidge, Rotec’s engineer assigned to the project says “This is a powerful unit, with a safe working limit of up to 1 ton on a dynamic line pull”. Adrian has seen the project through from the start, starting with the design and build, all the way to the site visits, maintaining his presence in case of any adjustments being necessary. He says the challenges in this project were in keeping the units as light as possible and compact, while retaining their ability to tackle heavy loads.

Click below to watch the National Grid engineers work at dizzying heights as shown on the news:

NationalGrid_BBC1West_28.03.2017_22.39

Date: 27/04/2017

Author: Sarka Humpolcova

Rotec help Western Power Distribution enter a new era

Western Power Distribution faced some tough decisions as their workhorse of choice, the iconic Land Rover Defender production was brought to a close. The company had to find an alternative vehicle suitable for the challenging working conditions and decided on the formidable Isuzu Dmax. Rotec have been the power supplier’s chosen partners in developing and producing a fleet of vehicles adapted to cover the urban and rough terrain that covers their distribution network. Rotec’s engineers have designed, built and installed over 1200 of the tailored made winches over the past decade, all the way until the last Defender model rolled of line at Solihull, bringing the icon’s 70 years of service to a close.

Land Rover Defenders

The Land Rover Defender is well known for its universal chassis base, often adapted to suit a wide range of applications that allowed commercial and end users to produce a wide range of engineered solutions that could either be mechanically or hydraulically driven. Rotec designed, manufactured and installed a range of winch solutions that meet the demands of the overhead linesman who required a robust system that gave precision winching often in remote and arduous terrain.

Rotec winch systems meet statutory requirements for lifting under the ‘Lifting operations and lifting equipment regulations 1998’, winches installed meet BS EN14492 providing the lines man with quality products that often employed electronic controls to safe guard load control and interlocks incorporated within the vehicle.

Isuzu Dmax

We were excited to announce that WPD had extended the contract as they rolled out their new fleet – the tough Isuzu Dmax 4×4.

WPD announced “Rotec mechanical and hydraulic design engineers continue to work on new hydraulic winch systems for a wide range of vehicles that will embrace the technology and experience gained over the years with the Land Rover. Whilst Feb 2016 has seen the last of any new production Land Rovers, the vehicle will be adapted and utilised by many enthusiast and commercial companies for hydraulic applications in many years to come, Rotec is the team to work with.”