How many of you have Mini labs like the CSI 5200? What do you think of them? Pros and cons. Would you rather use the minilab or send your samples out? What other makers of mini labs for industrial applications are out there?

Aubrey

Aubrey,
We use a CSI 5200. It is a great troubleshooting and predictive maintenance tool. Having a oil lab on site saves a lot of time for determining whether or not to schedule down time for repairs, oil filtering or oil changes. We gave a dollar amount to each sample that we ran based on the basic sample cost if sent to a remote lab. The savings of having a in-house lab is usually $3000 to $5000 per month and sometimes more. Occasionally we need analytical ferrography for determining a contaminate, these samples are still sent out. As our equipment is getting more and more healthy the number of samples sent out to another lab has decreased.

Jerry E. Baker
PdM Lubrication,BIO-PDO
Tate & Lyle, Loudon TN Plant