Do You Offer On-Site Centrifuge Service?

Sentrimax field service technicians can perform a substantial amount of centrifuge repair on site, including inspections, alignment, control troubleshooting and many mechanical repairs. Balancing a rotating assembly to ISO G 0.5 specification and machining parts to OEM tolerance require shop equipment, so those scopes still need to go to a Sentrimax facility.

What field service technicians can actually do on site

On-site service is one part of Sentrimax’s broader
emergency and on-site centrifuge service capability, offered alongside remote diagnostics and
facility repair. A field visit can resolve more than plant staff often expect. On-site work
commonly includes:

• Detailed inspection of the machine in its installed condition, including the checks that
  inform a repair scope before anything is removed
• Alignment checks between the centrifuge and its drive components
• Control system troubleshooting, including PLC and HMI issues, VFD problems and brake system
  integration
• Mechanical repairs and component replacement that do not require removing the rotating
  assembly for shop machining or balancing
• Support for mobilized equipment, including trailer-mounted, skid-mounted and containerized
  centrifuge configurations, in their installed environment

For plants running a mobilized or skid-mounted unit, field service is often the only practical
option, and Sentrimax’s mobilization solutions group builds exactly this kind of deployable
configuration.

Where the line actually is: balancing and machining

Two scopes of work reliably cannot be completed on site, and it is worth being direct about
that rather than implying otherwise. Full rotating assembly balancing to ISO G 0.5 specification
requires a balancing setup that does not exist outside a shop environment. Machining a repaired
part to OEM tolerance similarly requires milling, lathe-turning and precision grinding equipment
that a field technician cannot bring on a truck. If a failure has damaged the bowl, scroll or
shaft badly enough to need machining, or if the rotating assembly needs to be rebalanced after
repair, that scope has to go to a Sentrimax facility, however good the field diagnostic work has
been.

On-site work versus facility work

What a field visit typically involves

1. Pre-visit review. Sentrimax reviews whatever symptom description, photographs
   or vibration data are available beforehand to prepare the technician for the likely fault.
2. On-site inspection. The technician inspects the machine in its installed
   condition, checking alignment, control and drive behavior, and accessible mechanical components.
3. In-place repair, where possible. Component replacement, alignment correction,
   and control or drive fixes are completed on site when access and scope allow.
4. Scope decision. If the inspection finds damage requiring balancing or
   machining, the technician documents the affected components and recommends what needs to ship to
   a facility.
5. Reporting. A detailed inspection report is produced regardless of whether the
   repair was completed on site or escalated to a facility.

Mobilization solutions and field service go together

Sentrimax’s mobilization solutions group builds trailer-mounted, skid-mounted and custom
Sea-Can or CONEX container centrifuge configurations for temporary or permanent deployment. These
units are, by design, meant to run where they are installed rather than in a shop, which makes
field service the natural fit for their ongoing inspection, troubleshooting and many of their
repairs. When a mobilized unit does need balancing or machining, the affected rotating components
can typically be removed and shipped without needing to move the entire skid or container.

Preparing your site before a technician arrives

• Have the machine safely isolated and ready for inspection, following your site’s lockout
  procedures
• Gather any vibration data, fault codes or photographs already collected, so the technician is
  not starting from zero
• Confirm site access requirements, including any safety orientation, PPE requirements or escort
  needs specific to your facility
• Identify who on your team can answer questions about recent process changes or maintenance
  history during the visit

How a field visit is scoped

Sentrimax scopes a field visit around what the technician can realistically resolve, based on
the information available beforehand. This is why remote diagnostic input matters even when a
field visit is already planned: photographs, vibration data and a clear description of the
symptom let the technician arrive prepared for the likely fault rather than starting from zero.
Sentrimax’s guide to remote centrifuge diagnostics
covers what that information can establish ahead of a visit.

When on-site work follows an unexpected failure

On-site service is one of three response paths after a centrifuge fails unexpectedly, alongside
remote diagnostics and facility repair. Sentrimax’s
guide to what to do when a centrifuge fails unexpectedly covers the first-hour actions that
apply regardless of which path the repair eventually takes, including what to record and what not
to disassemble before a technician gets involved.

Welding and fabrication: usually a facility scope

Structural repairs involving MIG, TIG or laser welding, brazing, HVOF coatings or hard surfacing
are generally facility work rather than field work. These processes require controlled conditions
and, in many cases, post-weld machining or stress relief that cannot be done reliably in a plant
environment. A field technician can identify that a weld repair is needed and document the extent
of the damage, but the repair itself is typically completed once the component has been shipped to
a Sentrimax facility.

Controls work is a field service strength

Not every on-site limitation runs in the same direction. Controls and automation work — PLC
upgrades and programming, HMI design, VFD troubleshooting and replacement, and brake system
integration — is often better suited to a field visit than a facility shipment, since the control
system is typically integrated with the plant’s broader automation and is impractical to remove
and ship. This is one of the clearest cases where on-site service is not a compromise but the
more sensible approach for the type of work involved.

What happens when a field job needs to become a facility job

If a field technician identifies that balancing or machining is required, the affected
components, or the full rotating assembly, are shipped to whichever Sentrimax facility is nearest.
From there the work follows the same documented process as any facility repair: inspection
including a 75-point check and third-party oil analysis, repair with parts built to meet or
exceed OEM specification, machining to OEM tolerance, balancing to ISO G 0.5, and a test run
before the unit ships back.

Setting expectations before the technician leaves your site

The most useful outcome of a field visit is not always a completed repair — sometimes it is a
clear, documented answer about what the machine needs next. A technician who leaves with a written
inspection report and a specific recommendation, even if the recommendation is “this needs to go
to a facility for balancing,” has still moved the repair forward. Plants that treat a field visit
purely as pass-or-fail on completing the repair on site sometimes undervalue the diagnostic
clarity a visit provides even when the physical repair itself has to happen elsewhere.

Field service across North America

Field service technicians are dispatched from Sentrimax’s three North American facilities to
support customers across the regions each facility serves. There is no promise of a fixed
response time; the honest answer is that it depends on the failure, the location and what parts
are needed, which is why the information you provide up front matters more than almost anything
else.

Independent service, regardless of brand

Field service technicians support the same range of brands Sentrimax services in its facilities
— including Sharples, Flottweg, Centrisys, Derrick, GEA, Alfa Laval, Tomoe, Andritz, Bird and
Pieralisi, among others — as an independent provider not authorized by or affiliated with any of
them. This means the on-site capability described on this page applies consistently across a mixed
fleet, rather than varying by manufacturer.

On-site service is not a lesser tier of repair

It is worth being clear that on-site service is not a discount or lower-quality alternative to
facility work — it is the right tool for a specific set of problems, in the same way facility work
is the right tool for others. A field technician’s inspection report, fit evaluation and repair
documentation follow the same standard as facility work; the difference is where the work happens
and what equipment is available to do it, not the rigor applied to it.

Request a field service visit

Describe the symptom, the machine’s model and location, and what you have already observed, and
Sentrimax will recommend whether a field visit, a remote diagnostic review, or a facility repair is
the right starting point.