Maintenance-free bearings: How they can reduce warranty claim costs

maintenance-free bearings improve products decrease warranty claims

Product consistency is critical for Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs). Their name and profitability tie directly to the performance and reliability of their products. This includes the components they’ve chosen to build with. Can maintenance-free bearings improve the status quo? When a component like a bearing fails prematurely, remedying the issue often involves filing a warranty…

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Excessive Roller Chain Wear? Why It Occurs

There’s a reason we replace roller chains regularly. The movement of chain around a sprocket naturally causes wear, but excessive roller chain wear and fatigue cause problems. A well-maintained chain drive will keep your machine running strong over time, making it important to minimize the impact of wear.  As the chain wraps around the sprocket,…

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Roller Chain Wear: Inside Roller Plates, Sprocket Tooth Sides

Are you seeing wear on the inside of your chain side plates or the sides of your sprocket teeth? Some wear and lengthening of roller chain as it operates is to be expected. However, when wear is excessive or abnormal, as in the above case – you’ll want to take a closer look. Replacing parts…

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Roller Chain Failure: Causes and Strategies for Prevention

Chain Failure

No one wants catastrophic roller chain failure. It’s disruptive and costly to halt operations while replacing your roller chain. Unfortunately, though, this is a problem we occasionally have to handle. There are three primary causes of chain breakage. When the driven load exceeds the chain rating, your chain is at risk of breaking. This issue…

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Greasing a Bearing: 4 Ways to Avoid Premature Failure

Premature bearing failures are a significant source of lost productivity and unnecessary cost. Most of the time, these failures are the result of improper or inconsistent bearing maintenance. Greasing a bearing–and doing it properly–is one of the most important steps you can take to extend the life of your bearings and reduce both costs and…

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Chain Elongation: Causes and Solutions

Roller Chain

Roller chain is one of the most commonly used industrial components. From mining to marine applications, the food industry to pharmaceuticals; roller chain is quite versatile. As you may expect, keeping this critical component working is essential. Premature chain elongation will shorten the lifespan of your roller chain, and even cause costly unplanned downtime and…

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Overheating Gearbox: Shaft Mount Reducer Solutions

Shaft-Mount-Reducer

Are you having trouble with an overheating gearbox? You’ll want to address the problem quickly. When oil temperature rises above 200°F it loses viscosity, which means it can’t reduce friction. This puts your reducer at risk. When you use an overheating gearbox, you’re risking it breaking entirely. Location is a common contributor to overheating. If…

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Gearbox Leakage: Shaft Mount Reducer Solutions

Shaft Mount Gearbox

Without oil, your gearbox is in serious trouble! Heat and friction caused by a lack of adequate lubrication will rapidly cause problems – damaging (or even breaking) the bearings and gears inside your gearbox. Thankfully, fixing gearbox leakage isn’t too hard. Rather than repeatedly topping off the gearbox, or worse – letting it run critically…

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Gearbox Noise & Vibration: Shaft Mount Reducer Solutions

Shaft-Mount-Noise-Vibration

Are you noticing gearbox noise and vibration in your reduction drive? This is a sign of an issue that should be fixed sooner rather than later. Break down in your helical shaft mount speed reducer can cause a shutdown of your entire machine. Any delay in production is costly and unpleasant. Definitely something worth avoiding.…

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Replace Unsightly Remote Grease Lines With Solid Lube

UnsightlyLines

Grease lines and remote lubrication systems are a good solution compared to the manual greasing process. There are details that aren’t immediately clear about long-term usability, though. Do these systems go far enough in trying to limit lubrication issues? Is there a better option?

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