Hydraulic vs pneumatic makers: what each needs from software

Valves, cylinders, fittings and manifolds appear in each range. Order handling, drawings, stock and serial numbers are shared too. A plant making both can use one base.

The split starts at the test bench. A hydraulic cylinder faces high pressure, hot oil and a long life under shock loads. A pneumatic cylinder sees lower pressure but millions of cycles and a customer who counts every leak.

Software must follow the bench, not the catalogue. Pick the bench first. It sets what your system must store.

Proof and burst pressure tests produce curves, not just pass marks. Store the pressure against time for each unit, with the test stand, the oil and the operator. A bare pass or fail will not help in a dispute. Customers who service these units later may ask for the original curve, years after the sale, and a lost file will not satisfy them.

Cleanliness is the second theme. Particle counts from a flushed assembly show whether the unit leaves the plant clean enough for a servo valve circuit. Record the count, the sample point and the fluid.

Seal kits, honed bores and chrome rods carry their own lots. When a seal batch is suspect, you need the list of cylinders it went into.

Leak tests are fast and frequent. Every valve may face a pressure decay check, and thousands run each shift. The software must accept results from the test stand automatically, or the operators will skip entries.

Cycle-life tests run for days. A sample of valves or cylinders cycles on a rig, and the log must show cycle count, failures and the cause found at teardown. That data feeds the rated life you quote to customers. Rigs run through nights and weekends, so the log must keep itself without someone babysitting a spreadsheet.

Variants multiply. One valve body can become dozens of port, voltage and seal combinations, so configuration handling matters.

Serial or batch numbers on every unit, a genealogy of parts and certificates of conformity apply to each. So does calibration of pressure sensors and flow meters. Where a plant makes cartridge valves for both fluids, the shared test bench makes that overlap even more obvious.

Hydraulics lean toward fewer, heavier units and detailed records for each. Pneumatics lean toward high volume and automated capture. A system built only for one will feel clumsy on the other.

A mixed plant should check that the same record can hold a pressure curve for one product and a leak figure for another.

List every test your products undergo, the equipment that runs it and the output format. Note which results customers receive. Include the test standards your customers cite in orders, since the software must prove you ran them.

Mark each test as manual, semi-automatic or machine-logged. That map tells a vendor what to connect and what to build.

Bring that list to the first demo and ask to see one hydraulic and one pneumatic test recorded end to end.