text supplied courtesy of PAMAS

Online and offline, at ambient pressure and under high pressure, in the laboratory or in the field - the versatility of the PAMAS S40 is evident and testifies to the years of continuous development work that has ensured that PAMAS has long been the world market leader in the field of particle measurement.For almost 30 years, PAMAS GmbH has been manufacturing automatic particle counters for liquids that can determine in a matter of minutes whether and to what extent a liquid is contaminated. A milestone in the history of development was laid with the introduction of the PAMAS S40 in 1999 . 

 

A short interview with the head of development at PAMAS GmbH, Mr. Michael Schumacher:

Mr. Schumacher, you have been working in the development department at PAMAS since 1995. What gave the impetus to develop a completely new portable particle counter at the end of the 90s, even though the PAMAS S2 was already a portable device?

Caterpillar approached us because research had shown that the cleanliness in hydraulic systems has a major impact on the reliability of their products. Cat was not satisfied with the devices available on the market. Since we were also dissatisfied with the electronic systems used in particle counters, we jointly drafted a specification for a new system that was way ahead of its time. Touchscreens were an absolute highlight at the end of the 90s, a weight of less than 10kg was far below comparable devices and completely digital signal processing was a novelty.

Surely customer demands have changed or developed over the years? How did you react to that?

The hardware base that we developed is still "state of the art" today. We can add and adapt functions according to customer requirements. Further variants of the PAMAS S40 have been adapted and optimized for other industries and liquids. The PAMAS S40 we will certainly continue to develop for a long time.

Michael sSchumacher
How do you think the market will develop or change in the future?

Particle measuring devices are used in many industries from the hydraulics industry to the pharmaceutical industry. From the point of view of measurement technology, the requirements are similar; from the customer's point of view, a specific optimization must be carried out for each application. We monitor emerging markets very closely in order to continuously adapt our products to the respective requirements and to be able to offer our customers the ideal particle measuring device.
It is very important to us to be perceived by our customers as a trustworthy provider. We claim to be the reference in particle measurement technology and are constantly developing our devices according to this guideline.

After almost 30 years of development work, the portable particle counters of the PAMAS S40 product series are now available in numerous, adapted product variants for the analysis of oils, fuels, phosphate esters as well as for water and water-based liquids.