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May 5, 2004
Subscribers: 35,502 |
| Today's
Tip: Accessorizing Gearboxes |
Many smaller gearboxes have a fill hole and a drain
plug. The only way to tell if the gearbox has the
proper amount of oil is to unscrew the fill plug
and stick your finger in it. To improve this process,
replace the drain plug with a sight glass. This
makes it easy for anyone walking by the equipment
to notice if there is a problem with insufficient
oil.
At the same time, because you no longer need to
open the fill cap regularly, replace it with an
appropriate breather or quick connects (on both
the fill port and drain) to add oil or deploy offline
filtration. (Submitted by Bill Jacobyansky, Maintenance
Manager, Guardian Industries. Thanks Bill!)
| Readers
Challenge: Justifying an Oil Analysis Program |
A maintenance manager at a large paper mill was
approached by some of the mill personnel about starting
an oil analysis program.
The mill had never had an oil analysis program.
After listening to his staff explain the benefits
of oil analysis, the manager asked:
"Why should we start an oil analysis program
if we have never had a failure due to poor oil quality?"
What would you tell this manager to convince him
that oil analysis is beneficial?
Submit your answer at
http://www.noria.com/challenge.asp
before Tuesday, May 11, 2004. Lube-Tips editors
will choose the best answer and the $100 recipient
will be announced next week.
| Lube-Trivia:
Name Those Thickeners |
Test your knowledge and prepare for ICML
lubrication and oil analysis certification.
QUESTION: Name four common soap-based
thickeners used in greases.
Get
the answer.
| Q
& A: Invisible Dirt is Dangerous |
"You usually can't see the dirt
in a fluid, whether its cleanliness is as dirty as
an ISO 23/21/18 or as clean as an ISO 14/12/9. Is
there really that much difference between the two
extremes?"
Yes! Because of the multipass nature of dirt in a
fluid, at ISO 23/21/18, a 50-gpm oil pump will circulate
almost 7,000 pounds of abrasive dirt to your components
each year. Conversely, at ISO 14/12/9, the same pump
will deliver just 14 pounds of dirt to the components
per year. All else held equal, the pump in the clean
system will last 15 times longer!
The dirt you can't see with the naked
eye is even more dangerous than the dirt you can see.
The small stuff is often clearance-sized, meaning
that it is just the right size to impede the blood
cell-sized machine surface clearances and cause abrasion
and surface fatigue. Likewise, the small particles
remain entrained in the oil for a long period of time,
even with just minimal agitation.
Submit
a question
| Post
of the Week: Options for Removing Water From
Oil |
To reward the lubrication and reliability
community for its participation in the Noria Message
Boards, we've started the Post
of the Week award. Every week, we award one lucky
member $50.
This week's award goes to:
BuckHntr (Silver Member)
Here's an excerpt from the post:
"For persistent water ingression
problems on larger systems, vacuum dehydration may
make sense. But there are other less expensive options.
A centrifuge is usually much less expensive to install
and usually will take care of persistent water ingression."
See
the entire post.
|
