Hydraulic Fluid Trainer

These are the steps to safely and effectively operate a hydraulic trainer.

The first step before walking into any shop area is safety glasses. A lot of dangerous components are located in a shop and a hydraulic trainer when not used properly can be one of them. The first step to operating the trainer however, is to check your fluid level. Without fluid, the machine will not run properly or run at all. Make sure that there is some level in the sight glass.

The second step to take, is another preventative maintenance step. It's crucial to check the filter before turning the machine on. A good filters indicator should be in the green portion. A bad filters indicator would be in the red portion. If the indicator is signaling red, this may mean your filter is compromised. A filter can plug with contaminants over time. This could affect the efficiency of the trainer if not corrected.

In the video I'm showing you, I will be using a non-differential cylinder. This is the cylinder labeled C2. The cylinder labeled C1 is a differential cylinder. In a non-differential cylinder, hydraulic pressure is applied to both sides of the cylinder. This will mean the speed of the extension and retraction of the cylinder will be the same. In a differential cylinder, the space in which hydraulic fluid is applied is not equal to the other side of the piston.

In this step we establish how we are going to create flow throughout the circuit. In the picture where no hoses are attached, we see a port with symbols below it. The symbol is a circle with a blacked out triangle in the top portion of it. This symbol tells us that this coming from the pump. Note that its a blacked out triangle and not an empty triangle. Blacked out will mean that some sort of fluid is coming out. An empty triangle will mean its pneumatic. After we attach one end of the hose to the pump outlet port, we need to attach the other end to the manifold.

This Is where the other end of the hose will be attached. On the manifold there is the letter p. This symbolizes the pump.

In this step I attach a hose from the top port of the manifold to the bottom port of the cylinder on my right. Where you place the hose on the cylinder or manifold does not matter. It will just change the direction when you move the toggle switch.

This step is the opposite of the prior step. I now attach a hose to the bottom port of the manifold. The other end of the hose I attach to the top port of the cylinder. When the circuit is complete, these hoses apply fluid either to the top or bottom ports of the cylinder causing it to either extend or retract.

The last step is giving the fluid someplace to go. When extending or retracting the cylinder, whatever fluid is on the decreasing end of the cylinder is going to be displaced. In order to capture this displaced fluid we hook up one end of a hose to the port labeled t on the manifold. This port is located above the pump port where we previously hooked up the pump hose. To complete the circuit we hook the other end of the hose to the tank return. The tank return is either of the two ports located left of the manifold but right of the blue bleed valve.