Are the solenoid’s on your pulse valve damaged? Learn the warning signs and how to replace your solenoids.
It could be time to replace that old worn-out solenoid. Check your dust collector’s valves. If your solenoid has any of these symptoms below, you’ll need to get it replaced before it turns into a bigger problem.
Warning Signs of a Damaged Solenoid
Rubber parts are worn
Solenoid post is bent
Plunger is get pitted
Due to environmental conditions, the coil itself has suffered an electrical short. This results in weakened copper wires
Once you have your rebuild kit, your next step is to get this commonly replaced dust collector part installed.
And today I’m going to show you how to rebuild your solenoid in your dust collector pulse valves, using a solenoid repair kit.
Dust collector valves come in lots of different shapes and sizes. But two varieties as far as a solenoid.
Ones that have the solenoid integral to the pulse valve like this, and ones that
don’t. This one would have an air tube coming out of the top, that would take it to a solenoid box, that would look like this.
When we open up this solenoid box you’ll see that the coil or solenoids are inside
here.
Changing out the repair kit, whether you’re doing it on the valve or inside a solenoid box, is very similar.
So let’s begin by taking off the coil.
I might mention that when you start changing out the solenoid repair kit, a few things you want to do.
You want to turn off the compressed air coming to the valves.
And you want to make sure that you’ve turned off the power. An easy way to do that is simply remove the fuse from your timer control panel.
Okay. So there’s a little clip on the top. And I just lift it with the screwdriver, and it slides right off.
And I can pull the coil off, which exposes the solenoid post. And this is the part that we’re gonna be replacing today.
If you have one in a box, it looks very similar. And just to show you I’ll pull the clip off. And this coil comes off. And again, the solenoid post is exposed.
And so whether you’re doing it on here or here the process would be very much the same.
Okay, inside our solenoid repair kit there’s lots of parts. These kits come with probably more parts than you need, because they’re made to be somewhat universal for lots of different valves.
But the main thing that we’re gonna replace today is a solenoid.
So this is the housing and this is a plunger. There’s a little spring that goes in it. And the way these work is the spring goes in here, and this moves up and down.
So when your coil sits over the top of this, and is energized, it creates an electromagnet making this thing pop up.
So these can wear out. So that’s why they need to get replaced.
So to remove it, you’ll see right on the top here, there’s just three screws. With a Philips head that we’re going to remove.
There’s a little washer right here. I’m gonna make sure we remove that and save
that.
And so, simply remove these three screws. Once we have the screws removed we’re gonna pull this up. There’s the plunger and the spring that we’re gonna replace. And there’s just a little aluminum housing piece that goes over the housing.
Okay. Now the next thing we need to do, is there’s an o-ring in the side. And we need to replace that o-ring. Just to make sure that we have good seals. So with just the tip of your screwdriver, you should be able to pop that out without too much trouble, and remove the old o-ring.
So we’re going to start by taking the new o-ring and just simply pushing it in.
And now we want to take our plunger assembly. We want to make sure that the spring is installed right. The rubber side is down and it’s moving freely.
And we’re just gonna set that right on top.
And then we take our aluminum housing.
With these kits there is another little o-ring right at the base of the plunger.
You want to make sure that that’s not in the kit and that’s actually been installed on the post.
So you see, we put this on. You take our housing and we put it right back on. It doesn’t really matter what direction you put it.
And we’re going to tighten down screws. I’m gonna make sure those are screwed down nice and tight, so that the o-rings are compressed.
Then it seals it, makes it air tight.
And now we’re ready to put the coil back on.
A couple notes on this. A lot of these coils have what they call a wave washer that goes on below the coil.
This particular wave washer, if you’re able to see this, it’s wavy. It flexes up and down. And what that does is acts is a little mini spring.
So when you put that on, and you put the coil. You can kind of compress the coil down. So that when you put the clip on it keeps the whole thing nice and tight.
This particular one came with this little washer that goes on the top and a clip.
And simply push that on and you’ve completed the repair kit.
Now you can turn on your power. Turn on your compressed air and make sure that it’s working correctly.