Pulsation is likely the most basic function of milking equipment. Pulsation is the function of moving the liner wall open and closed to provide for the milking action of the milking unit.
Now let’s clear up the first couple of sentences.
When I speak about liners I am speaking about the part inside the milking shell that goes over the teat during the machine milking process. Pulsation is the action then of either vacuumizing (removing the air) or venting (refilling the air) the space between the liner and the shell. I hope no one is surprised that my first post on this site is about liner movement. The world of milking liners although filled with options is all controlled by pulsation to achieve the intended result of machine milking a cow.
There are four phases of liner movement, named in alphabetical order of A,B,C and D. The A phase of liner movement is the opening of the liner and transition to milking. During the B phase the liner is open and milking. During the C phase, the liner is closing, and during the D phase the liner is closed or resting.
All of that seems pretty cut and dried and actually is one of the things that can be quite easily verified with the proper equipment. So why talk about this if it is so simple and obvious? Well, like all good things, it is not as simple as it seems. I always tell my good friend Tom, “I speak pretty good English and so does my wife, but most of the time, I don’t understand her and she doesn’t understand me.” The phases of pulsation can be equated to a trip to town or as I like to explain to guys who have hair changing to a different color like me, “driving ends.” The good old days in my area were fill with guys competing to see who could plow the straightest furrow. The problem to an impatient teen driver was those ends. I could plow a furrow but every end meant driving slow across the end just to drop the plow and go again. Going faster across the ends meant more acres per hour but also resulted in some pretty rough rides and the chance of getting a talking to from dad.
Pulsation is similar, we can shorten A’s and C’s to a point or we can let them be and spend more time doing things that don’t help us milk cows. B phases milk cows and D phases remove congestion, plain and simple. The goal of every milking event should be clean and complete. Clean teats, cleanly milked, with milk completely removed. Removal of all things that prevent that from happening is the goal.
What are your pulsator phases? What were they a month ago? Are they still the same? We have the ability to measure pulsation with extreme accuracy, have you done it lately and do you see the results? All goals need the ability to verify to be successful. With pulsation, we have the ability to verify to the 1/1000th of a second… I’d say that’s pretty close.
So… take a look, where are you at? Why are you there? Is there a better place to be? Nearly every second a pulsation cycle is completed in your machine. You literally have thousands of opportunities each day to do it right, unfortunately you have the same number of opportunities to do it wrong. Make sure you are doing it right.