Starting A Calibration Lab

Being in the military and starting up a lab are two different things. Being proficient as a tech does not mean I am proficient at starting a business. Military standards, more specifically army standards for a lab follow USATA. I assume it would different for a commercial lab but I have never work at one, so I do not know. That is why I am asking. I rather ask a redundant question and learn as much as possible than to miss an vital piece of information. While I appreciate your comment, I am going to do this either way. If everything in life was easy, life would be boring. I rather attempt this "beyond my capabilities" task and fail than to not try at all because it was too difficult. The thing about young is that you have time to fail and try again. Please do not respond to me as I will not respond back. Thank You

Nice reply and GA from me.

Best to start looking into existing test lab businesses and see how they are set up so you get a better idea of what you are getting yourself into.

Also check the ISO standards website

http://www.iso.org/iso/home.html

If it is still looking like something you want to do then check out the appropriate standards you will be testing to so you can get a feel for the testing requirements, equipment needed, etc.

https://global.ihs.com/

and others for example

http://www.standards.org.au/Pages/default.aspx

Important (and slightly expensive step as you will need to purchase the standards) but the standards won't tell you everything.

You will also need to perform more research on the internet to fill in the blanks.

Getting customers, well that is a completely different story.

Alternatively, perform a detailed search online and in appropriate trade magazines as you may find there are existing mobile (or similar) test companies that offer franchises, and it would be a quick way to get in to the business with lots of help that would give you a good grounding later on if you wanted to go it alone.

Your idea of a mobile calibration lab is good since you can work at customer's place and reduce reaction time and transport cost. There is as well a psychological aspect since his tools do almost not leave the plant.

The rule you have to respect 101% is traceability which means you have to make sure that all your measuring equipment is bond to the national standards and that you verify it on a regular basis in order to avoid increase of uncertainty (you must be able to demonstrate to your customer that all your equipment was verified even more frequently than the standard specifies it and this is also important to show that between 2 successive controls it did not change more than it should).

Do you have the necessary knowledge about error transmission and how you will have to specify the uncertainty of your calibration results ? If not this is the very first step to learn and master perfectly.

You mention torque wrenches and gauges. Users have unfortunately most of cases little knowledge of the requirements for torquing tools and if you want to do this job it is not only the use of a torque sensor what you need. Today's standards are quite stringent and require specific equipment. For pressure gauges it is quite simple since what you need is a pressure source (non polluting) and a reference gauge with its reading and recording equipment. It is a so called parallel calibration. The torque wrench is a tool which requests a serial calibration since the torque vector goes through both tool end reference. This is more sensitive to the way it is manipulated.

If the industry is aware of the need to calibrate pressure gauges it is less convinced that torque wrenches must be precise. You could add to your profile also force transducers which you can easily calibrate with good references and a hand actuated hydraulic press up to 50 T. With a simple attachment you can do as well compression as tension with same reference.

This is for the technique, as for the business itself the problem will be to create a customer basis.

If you are in a geographical area where industry is not very well present then you will have problems because of the time required to go from a site to an other.

The second aspect is the price, being a small entity customers will ask you to do same job or even better than other service suppliers at a lower cost. This comes to the point what "special service" could you offer in order to maintain a correct price level?

What I tell you comes from own experiences due to my activity in sensor design and development as an independent small company so that I was confronted to all aspects of calibration especially of force (single force or multiple), torque sensors (torque wrenches as well), pressure sensors and 6 components sensors from tiny 1/2" force sensors up to 600 T/unit.

Calibration of electric systems is more complex and it is good to start with mechanical devices.

As for what ALL other said there is a lot of "true" in it. A German popular word is that all beginnings are difficult you will not be an exception.

I have a good friend who works at a large electric utility, at a nuke plant. His job is to check (confirm) manufacturers calibrations on both valve (hydro) and electrical components that are used in the facility, as well as on instruments that technicians use in the plant. His background is as a machinist and line electrician, although he has over 10 years in this position. He says they do outsource the large valves, by having them sent to a third party testing facility before they receive them. I don't know if this falls under the calibration category or not, but they test pump and hydraulic instruments in house. Good luck!

It is a VERY ggod idea to have as well the lifting equipment to take the load off and measure the zero shift!

But you have to learn -if you do not already know - how such an operation has to be done. It is not so simle as it seems at first view.

Further more some containers are connected to the rest of the structure with rigid ducts or holders which could add some mesurement errors. The best is to take the load cell out and calibrate it on apropriate fixture.

There is also a procedure for situations when you cannot take the sensor off. Using rams with load cells the load is lifted progresively so that the load on sensor to be calibrated is transfered to the lifting units. The summ is always constant so that you can calibrate by load reduction instead of only load increase as usual.

It is a VERY ggod good idea to have as well the lifting equipment to take the load off and measure the zero shift!. No. It is a very bad idea to lift off all the weight to zero load cells because then they always read the vessel tare weight as well as the vessel contents. With jacks you can lift the vessel off its own cells to determine the true weight, jack it down to a point where a known tare weight has been transferred back onto the vessel cells and set their zero point, then jack down to leave all the weight on the vessel cells to set their span.

But you have to learn -if you do not already know - how such an operation has to be done. It is not so simle simple as it seems at first view. It is much easier than emptying the vessel to set the zero point then humping tones of test weights onto it to set the span then humping the same weights off again. It is more reliable than pumping tons of water into the vessel to get a simulated weight on the assumption that the pump used is dosing the correct volume. However if you know the precise internal geometry of the vessel, pumping water in and dipping the level can produce very accurate results. The clients trust it more then measuring the electrical output of each load cell and extrapolating that value to calculate the weight. I have always found this to be the simplest way to calibrate load cells on very large vessels.

If pipes or ducts connected to a weighed vessel are influencing the weighing accuracy then removing the load cells and calibrating on a fixture is not eliminating these errors. The weighed elements of any structure should only ever have flexible connections, and while these still affect the accuracy, calibration while in situ will take some of the introduced error into account. Calibration on an external fixture does not take any of these introduced influences into account and will always produce a worse result. What is the point of having a very accurately calibrated load cell if it does not reflect the true contents of the vessel? Both zero and span can be set using the jacking method which can also be rigged to compress load cells to simulate an introduced load.

You only need two points to calibrate a load cell. Progressive lifting can tell you the linearity of the system but you don't need it for calibration. In most weight amplifiers putting in the span reading before the zero reading either wont be accepted or will adjust the span reading by the difference between the old and new zero readings. Once both a zero and span have been locked in the zero can then be adjusted at will. Calibrating by load reduction may work on a few systems but I have never encountered one. The first two sentences of your last paragraph describe how my suggested method of calibrating load cells works, although you still need to know the tare weight of the vessel, so I can only assume that you did not understand my post. If my description was inadequate then I apologize.

I agree with you it is a very good idea to use water as for instance in a vessel for chemicals or oil, the possible reaction with remaining small quantities will make the customer also very happy. This procedure is best adapted to cement silos.

I agree that for high levels on uncertainty 2 points are a totally satisfactory result but unfortunatelyb the stupid engineers who made the rules asked for 5 points at least and also to make a series of at least 3 runs in order to determine linearity and hysteresis. But those guys have no knowledge of reality.

I again agree with you, of course I did not understand due to my very limlited knowledge as well of english (UK) as of the field of load cells or any other force, pressure or torque devices and of course of their acquisition electronic equipment.

It is good that professionals as you participate and can correct the errors.

May be you could on the private channel give me a few lessons I am always ready to learn. I shall be very thankful if you could recommend a few sources if you have not the time.

Thank you in adavance

The ISO standard that you would need to be certified to is ISO17025. This is sometimes time consuming and hard to get but it is the standard that will allow you to get the customers you are targeting. Force, torque, dimensional and pressure would be the easiest disciplines to start with and the lowest startup cost. Good luck.

doing things in the military is one thing,.... in the private sector, when you do something, you have to make a profit.

You should work at a test lab at the very least, then you'll realize that its not all about just having the equipment, you also need training. What are you 23-24 years old....maybe....

Remember, potential clients don't know you from jack.... you need to start making not only connections, but most important, experience as well.

Greetings,

In my work I deal with several calibration services. We have one that does our air movers such as cross draft, updraft, fume, and hepa hoods in our labs. We have another service that simply does scales. From the truck scale to the lab precision balance. We have another that does our ph and thermo probes on the main fermenters. another that does nothing but temperature control devices. Another that does nothing but HVAC. This is a very broad field with many niches so your geographical area of service would help you decide what is needed and what it is you wanted to work with.

There are very few "one stop shops" in the business in this area and those that are were as a previous poster noted, a conglomeration of smaller niche operations that got bought up.

Once you figure out the need in the area and/or your interests you can research standards, certifications, and necessary equipment and facilities. That ought to keep you busy for a while.

Good Luck!

Most entrepreneurs fail on their first 2 attempts at a business.

This is a statistical fact.

Not meant to discourage you,but to encourage you to keep trying if at first you do

not succeed.

There are many more devices and process variables in the real world than in the

military,more than you can possibly imagine.

I have hired vets with 20 years calibration and electronics experience that were

totally lost in an industrial environment in an industry that spans thousands of acres.

This is not a calibration shop where they bring things to you to calibrate.

Sometimes you must climb 80 feet or more up a ladder to calibrate a desuperheater

valve for a turbine, or replace an RTD,or climb down a manhole to calibrate an open

channel flow meter.

High heat,humidity,nasal ripping odors,poor lighting, and low clearances are typical.

Some adapted,and stuck around,but most just could not cope with being thrown into

water over their heads.

I had one try to calibrate a pneumatic valve by restricting an 80 psi air supply

instead of using an adjustable pressure regulator.

I had a hard time making him understand the difference.

The ones that stayed eventually became my most valuable players.

So basically,be prepared for a culture shock,but don't give up and you will succeed.

Don't listen to the naysayers, even if the first few attempts should fail.

Stay focused on the goal,and one day you will be your own boss,and lead a

successful company.

To paraphrase Mark Twain,when you get older,you will regret the things you didn't do

much more than the things you did.

The secret to success is persistence,and being knocked down does not mean defeat

as long as you get back up.

If you stay down,you are a whipped pup.

Good luck in your endeavors!

PS: It is much easier to do this before you marry and have children!

Plato said:"Marriage! I recommend it.If you get a good one, you will be happy.If not,you will becomes a philosopher.! "

All sage advice.

The wife and family advice is particularly good.

1. Your competency certification (e. g., NIST, ISO, and an endless multitude).

2. Insurance.

3. Law suits. It will not be long before you spend more and more of your time either testifying in support of your services for a client being sued or defending yourself in litigation for negligence.

4. Reliability of your workers and your calibration equipment, a big factor in all of the above.

5. Competition, including with the increasing amount of bonded self-certification by the manufacturers of the stuff you are calibrating. After all, they really are the best in the business and want their stuff to work.