This invention relates to monitoring oil and fuel for contamination and in particular to a probe for monitoring the level of contamination within a fuel or oil reservoir remotely located from the signal processing electronics and connected thereto by a cable.
Failure of equipment, such as pumps, is often due to contaminants such as water in the bearing lubricating oil. Failure of the bearing would often lead to an investigation into the failure finding that water in the lubricating oil led to increased bearing friction and premature failure. To detect the presence of water in lubricating oil prior to failure of the bearing, samples of bearing lubricant have been removed from a drain port in the lubricant reservoir and analyzed in a laboratory to determine whether the sample lubricant was contaminated.
What is needed is an apparatus for continuously monitoring the lubricating oil to determine when a contaminant reaches a predetermined level in the reservoir. The signal processing portion of such an apparatus would be mounted remotely from the lubricating oil reservoir with a probe mounted in the lubricating oil reservoir such as in the drain port yet retaining the function of the lubricating oil reservoir drain.