US EPA Method 9 Training – Smoke Generators
US Patent Number 8245644B1
Features:
- Heavy Duty Trailer Mount: All VEGA smoke generators are mounted on a heavy duty trailer chassis with heavy-gauge steel cover plates, side walls with top rails and cargo tie-downs. Tandem axles with electric brakes (one axle) with fast-lube bearing seals are standard. A large side-mounted steel cargo container will hold batteries, charger and other gear.
- Re-Designed Black and White Smoke Generator Chambers: The black smoke burn box can be fired on No.2 diesel or bio-diesel. This eliminates the use of toluene, a toxic chemical and hazardous air pollutant, which is subject to special DOT transportation requirements.The white smoke chamber was re-designed to avoid the “hyper-sensitivity” of older units. The chamber temperature is displayed at the control panel and can be equipped with an automatic process flow controller based on a pre-determined temperature set point (Option). It is equipped with a remote fuel gas ignitor..
- Commercial Grade Opacity Monitor: The VEGA generator uses an industrial/commercial grade single-pass continuous opacity monitoring (COMS) system that complies with 40 CFR 60, Appendix A (Method 9) and Appendix B (COMS Reference Method 1) requirements. It greatly improves system precision and reliability and also enables filter checks at the receiver unit and avoids having to insert filters through the stack opening.
- Fuel Flow Indicators: Liquid fuel flow indicators are mounted in the central control panel. They provide critical visual information about actual fuel flow rates and greatly improve system safety and reliability.
- Remote stack raising and lowering: All VEGA smoke generators feature a remote hydraulic stack raising and lowering system. It eliminates the hand-pumping to raise and the manual pushing of the stack in order to lower it to its cradle.
- Central Control Panel: A central trailer-mounted control panel includes all critical controls and gauges.
- System Power Options: The unit can be equipped with 110 shore line power or a 12 V on-shore power system or a combination of both. A charger is mounted in the cargo container along with the batteries and when plugged into 110 V shore-power can operate on 110 Volt and also charge the batteries at the same time. The unit is powered by three 12 V deep-cycle batteries. With fully charged batteries there is a minimum of 12 hours of system power available.
- Variable Speed ID-Fan Motor (option): For the 110 VAC option an industrial-grade motor speed controller and power conditioner converts standard 110V power to three-phase 220V power. The motor is a 1hp 220V motor and can be operated on a standard 15 amps circuit. For the 12 VDC systems a DC-voltage modulation system is used to vary fan speed settings.
- Unit-Mounted PA-System (Option): A PA-amplifier can be mounted in the central control panel. Weather-proof speakers are permanently mounted on the unit.
- Remote Controls (Option): An optional remote control unit can be connected via serial cable to the central control panel. It includes indicators (LEDs) for opacity and fuel flow as well as all essential controls for white/black smoke selection, fuel flow (high and low-speed) and fuel-gas on/off switches. It can be linked via USB cable to a notebook computer to assume the function of a data logger to track opacity, burn chamber temperatures and fuel flow rates.