Patent ID: 8490520

Claim:
An oilfield tubular spinner for an oilfield tubular wrench, the oilfield tubular spinner comprising: a powered spin roller including an axis of rotation; a spin motor operatively connected to, and configured to drive, the powered spin roller to rotate about its axis of rotation; and a spin-out detection system configured to detect a spun-out condition of an upper tubular being driven by the powered spin roller to threadedly disconnect from a lower tubular and to initiate spin motor shutdown in response to the detection of the spun-out condition, wherein the spin-out detection system includes: a sensor to identify a downward vertical displacement of the upper tubular during handling by the spinner, such downward vertical displacement indicative of a thread jump, wherein the sensor is selected from the group consisting of: an accelerometer or a linear transducer; a timer to monitor the operational time that the powered spin roller is driven by the motor; an encoder to at least indirectly count the number of rotations through which the upper tubular has moved during operation of the spin motor; a memory storage configured to store spin-out or disengagement times, or both, for particular tubular type profiles to be handled; and a controller configured to continuously monitor the linear displacement between the upper and lower tubulars, acceleration of the tubulars, or both.