We had a wonderful phone call this morning; and it brought about some reflections on business.  From our view of business within the constraints of the current economy, it is becoming even more important to take care of customers and stand by your product.  Being cheaper or "bigger" only brings in so many orders!  It's constantly taking care of the customers needs, though sometimes difficult to accomodate, that sets you apart from the competition.

That's what we're striving to do.  I could bore you with a thousand examples, but will only give you one! The suprise phone call was from one of our customers, Trane San Diego.  We had the opportunity to build some custom heat exchangers for a large aquarium at Sea World over five years ago.  Due to the nature of the project, it took some troubleshooting and a bit of warranty work in the field on our part, but we did it and they're now working great.  Five years later, they need some more custom units at Sea World and they've called us.  Not because we're perfect, not because we're cheap, but because we do what we say we will do and if our products don't work or have component failures under warranty, we follow through.  Warranties are just business speak for "pinky promises".

We may not be perfect, but we "pinky promise" to deliver.

JTS can provide chillers for HDx MR systems.  The standard MR that is supplied with the system is not suitable for high ambient locations.  If you need a reliable, high ambient cooling solution for an HDx MR, call or email us for a quote today.  sales@johnsonthermal.com

JTS shipped another custom MR chiller today; this one to New Brunswick, New Jersey. The available location for the chiller on this MR system remodel was in a parking garage and there was limited vertical clearance for condenser exhaust. Another opportunity for JTS to do what we advertise...create a custom solution. Our engineers were able to modify the units with different fans to exhaust horizontally instead of vertically. The pictures below show the modifications to the exhaust. JTS is dedicated to providing the best service to GE Medical and its customers by providing a quality, highly-engineered product coupled with exceptional service at a reasonable price. Contact JTS for your personalized quote. info@johnsonthermal.com 208-453-1000

A handful of companies supply medical chillers to GE, Philips and Toshiba.  However, the majority of those companies offer one product, with no customization available.  We all know that you can't put a square peg into a round hole, so how can a chiller manufacturer expect their product to work for all projects?  Simple; you can't! JTS offers the perfect solution.  We have a product line for GE Optima 450W and for the GE Discovery 450 & 750, but we can also customize a chiller for the specific install needs.  Case in point; we recently installed two chillers for a Discovery 750 at the University of California San Diego Research Center Functional MRI remodel project.  The site plan for a normal install would not work due to sizing restraints on the roof, so we were able to build two 25 ton chillers in a single cabinet to fit the available space.

JTS provides the best solution for your medical chiller needs.  Not only is our price highly competitive, we are a leader in energy efficient chillers.

Why are we are a leader in energy efficiency?  

Our chillers are built with the following features:

Digital Scroll Compressors- The highly efficient scroll compressor is made even better with Digital Scroll technology. This system allows the compressors to load and unload rapidly while the compressor is running. This allows for energy savings at part load, and very close temperature control. When the compressor is unloaded, it only consumes 10% of the full load power. The nature of an MR cooling system is to see a heavy full load during a scan, then a very small load from the cryo compressor when in between scans. JTS chillers are able to unload to this low level, saving energy in the process. 

Variable Speed Fans with EC Motor Technology- JTS chillers feature EC motor driven condenser fans. On cool days, the condenser fans are able to slow down to provide the exact amount of airflow. This also allows us to provide over-sized fans, for the really hot days. But you don’t have to pay for the power consumption of those fans during cooler weather.

Electronic Expansion Valves- On of the greatest energy savers in refrigeration today is the electronic expansion valve. Older thermostatic style valves require higher pressures to push refrigerant through the valve and provide cooling. Electronic valves, driven by a stepper motor, can feed refrigerant at much lower refrigerant pressures. Power consumption of the compressor is directly proportional to the refrigerant discharge pressure.

Contact JTS for a quote today.

Johnson Thermal Systems Inc. of Caldwell, Idaho has been chosen by Vilter Manufacturing of Cudahy, Wisconsin to design and build the cooling portion of a gas processing system at a wastewater treatment plant in Midland, Michigan.

JTS will be building a 30 ton flooded chiller and associated equipment for the gas processing application.  JTS and Vilter have worked together on gas processing projects in Turlock, California for Turlock Irrigation District and Agoura Hills, California for the LA County Santiation District's Calabasas Landfill Gas to Energy Project.

Johnson Thermal Systems has recently been added to GE Medical’s short list of preferred vendors to provide medical-grade chillers for installation with their newest MRI system.  
Jeff Johnson, sales engineer, has over 10 years of experience in this industry. He has  designed and commissioned medical MRI chillers for GE, Phillips and Siemens. Frans Poulissen, Project Manager for JTS, has over eighteen years experience in the  pharmaceutical and biotech industries covering aseptic manufacturing, engineering,  maintenance, commissioning, validation and compliance.  
 JTS can also provide the important city-water switch over modules that provide added  protection to expensive MRI equipment in the event of component failure. We can meet your medical chiller needs with our extensive experience and custom solutions.  Contact us today... 

Johnson Thermal Systems | Caldwell, ID     (208) 453-1000 jeff.johnson@johnsonthermal.com      fransp@johnsonthermal.com

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE


JOHNSON THERMAL SYSTEMS INC. LANDS $3.2 MILLION PROJECT FOR LA COUNTY’S NEWEST GAS TO ENERGY PROJECT

Small Idaho manufacturer secures contract for building chillers and bio-gas processing skids for Los Angeles County Sanitation District for installation at Calabasas Landfill in Agoura, California.

In bio-gas processing systems, waste gases (i.e. methane) are treated on site and pollutants are safely removed.  The resulting gases are then converted into useable power, saving money for the municipality and reducing emissions of waste gas to the atmosphere.

The Calabasas Gas to Energy program consists of three identical systems, or skids.  Each skid will filter 3,000 cubic feet per minute of landfill gas to feed a 5 mega-watt gas turbine.  Johnson Thermal Systems Inc. (JTS Inc.) is designing and manufacturing the refrigerated drying and cooling system as well as assembling and testing the gas purification components for installation by Hobbs Bannerman, Inc. of Garden Grove, California.  JTS Inc. is working in conjunction with Vilter Manufacturing in Cudahy, Wisconsin, who is providing the gas compressors.

JTS Inc. has been in the industrial refrigeration business since 2004.  They specialize in custom chillers and have designed and built chillers for many bio-gas processing applications.  JTS Inc. has worked on numerous jobs for municipalities including Turlock Irrigation District (California), Pieper Power (Wisconsin), Oro Loma Sanitation District (California), Manitoba Hydro (Thompson, Manitoba) and the cities of Burbank, Sonoma and Fortuna (California).

For more information about Calabasas Gas to Energy and bio-gas conditioning, call Johnson Thermal Systems Inc. at (208) 43-1000 or visit www.johnsonthermal.com.
Contact:

Sheri Johnson or Frans Poulissen
Johnson Thermal Systems Inc.
 (208) 453-1000
 www.johnsonthermal.com
 info@johnsonthermal.com
 

by IBR Contributor Published: November 17th, 2008

You would be greatly mistaken if you thought “custom refrigeration equipment” meant Jeff Johnson is making refrigerators.  

“It’s refrigeration, not refrigerators. We build cooling systems, not what goes in your kitchen,” Johnson said. 

Not that he probably wouldn’t be able to build a refrigerator. At Johnson Thermal Systems in Caldwell, there is a slew of equipment Johnson builds. He does manufacturing and contracting work for various companies. Some common jobs for Johnson include designing and building cooling equipment for breweries and dairies, chillers for magnetic resonance imaging (MRIs) and even alternative energy systems.

One of Johnson’s larger projects deals specifically with methane gas. “Poop power,” he called it. The equipment he builds sucks the methane out of a human waste digester at waste water treatment plants and converts it into fuel. “Most plants just have to burn the excess methane,” said Johnson, “but our equipment converts it into energy.”

His equipment takes the methane gas and purifies it of sulfur and acids, at which point the gas has been heated to about 140 degrees; it then needs to be cooled, Johnson said. Depending on certain specifications, the fuel can then be used for equipment like small turbines or engines, he said. Johnson used to only build the refrigeration part of the equipment but now builds the entire machine. For this, he primarily works with a company in California called Stewart Engineered Equipment Co., which sells his methane gas converters to places like the ESC Co. in Redmond, Wash. He also builds equipment to convert excess gases into energy for the company Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. in California, and he is collaborating with General Electric on new MRI equipment.

Johnson said he has equipment shipped to places such as California, Wisconsin and even Toronto, Canada. His favorite part of the job is problem solving with all of this different equipment. “I like working with a group of people to solve problems,” Johnson said, adding, “and I rarely build the same thing twice.” 

Johnson originally began his company in 2004 and moved to Caldwell from San Diego in 2005. He recently opened “an actual shop,” he said, after working out of his home for several years. The new shop is located at 1614 Industrial Way, Ste. 104, in Caldwell.

After moving from California, he was still working primarily with California vendors for his material, but now said he is finding the Treasure Valley has more to offer than he realized. “I’ve been trying to put more focus on local vendors and buy local,” he said. 

And as far as all the people he needs to build all of this equipment? “We have five employees, two that are new, and we might have three more people in the next year,” he said. 

Johnson expects to continue expanding on manufacturing and contracting work. “I would be disappointed if by 2009 we haven’t made $2 million in sales,” he said.

But with the increasing jobs and opportunities Johnson has been given, he still keeps it in perspective. “I try not to be too ‘pie in the sky,’” he said. 

Contact info Phone — 208.453.1000 E-mail — jeff.johnson@johnsonthermal.com Web site: www.johnsonthermal.com

This article was published in a magazine published by SWEP, USA, and features Jeff while he was an employee of Schreiber Engineering.  

About half of Schreiber Engineering's business is for medical chillers that are, for instance, hooked up to an MRI, a CT scanner or a cyclotron. Philips Medical Systems and GE Medical are two Schreiber Engineering customers using the medical chillers. 

Jeff Johnson, P.E, Applications Engineer, Schreiber Engineering, says: “We build chillers for almost all the MRI manufacturers in the marketplace, and all use brazed plate heat exchangers.  For example, we design the chillers specifically for Philips Medical Systems' needs, and to be able to do that we use SWEP's B80 CBE. We now also use that design as a core for all of our medical products.” According to Johnson, SWEP's brazed plate heat exchangers provide the flexibility to make chillers with compact footprints, whereas the shell & tube locks users into a big and long component.  “The paramount issue of the brazed plate technology is the flexibility to build truly customized chillers. The SWEP CBE has helped us in giving a lot of design flexibility,” he says.

Prefer brazed plates
Today, the submersed coil only fits a very limited set of Schreiber Engineering's business. Johnson says that to use the submersed coil, customers need a tank to submerse it in and many customers demand other kinds of solutions, and often prefer brazed plates. Other customers may have unusual design conditions, and to accommodate them, and to engineer a tailor-made product, Johnson opts for brazed plates.

“When it comes to the new design of the medical chillers, performance is important, and the efficiency of the CBE is a little bit better than the submersed coil. But one critical factor, as I see it, is size. Because of the compact size of the CBE, and due to the fact that we've put it outside the reservoir, we don't have to make a bigger chiller. The CBE has given us the flexibility to design the refrigeration in such a way that it's become a very serviceable system,” Johnson says.

One of the biggest issues with chillers used in medical applications is reliability, and it includes after-sales service. One of the problems with the submersed coil is the fact that it has two coils sitting on top of each other inside a tank of water, and to get heat transfer they are made of extremely thin copper. Trouble may arise with corrosion if the water quality is not very good. Hard water can even cause holes in the coils, and they may fail and ruin the refrigeration system. Even if it is caught in time, replacing the coil is extremely expensive and time-consuming. Besides, the chiller cannot be operating during coil replacement. “We build a 10-ton chiller that uses two 5-ton refrigeration systems, and have independent brazed plates. Because we've built a refrigeration skid, and have put everything other than the condenser and its fans on this skid, we can easily remove the refrigerant and put in a new one. The refrigerant can be replaced in three hours, and at the same time the rest of the chiller will be able to run, and still make cold water for the medical equipment. Using our older technology, submersed coil, it would probably be a two-day job with nothing running at all. Apart from all the trouble caused by a non-operating chiller, the warranty costs would also be very high,” Johnson says.

New line of medical chillers
All of Schreiber Engineering's new line of medical chillers, and all chillers from 15 tons and up, use SWEP's brazed plate heat exchangers exclusively.

Schreiber Engineering also designs low-temperature chillers using CBEs, as well as water chillers with ionized water using nickel-brazed plates.

“SWEP's range of CBE models is probably the best in the market, and we also get good service. The SSP software has given me the flexibility to test different design modes, and helped me in trying out a lot of combinations. Using the software on my own is really helpful, and saves time, which suits me pretty well. When I have zeroed in on an issue, I can always talk to somebody at SWEP about it. The availability of literature on the SWEP website is also good from that standpoint,” Johnson says.

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A True ton is not a con ton
Trueton is Schreiber Engineering's trademark name. Historically, Trueton have been in the fabrication business, producing chillers for welding and laser equipment, and for plastic injection molding machines.

“In the process chiller market, most chillers are not rated at the American Refrigeration Institute's standard conditions of 44 degrees Fahrenheit chilled water. Many other chiller manufactures still say that it is one ton at 65 F, but we say it is at 44 F, so in essence, our chillers are more powerful. In our historical market that has been very important, so that explains our name. Actually, my grandfather came up with that trademark name, because we're dealing with a true ton, we're not trying to con you,” Jeff Johnson says.