What Problems Need To Be Avoided For a Healthy Lubrication?

One of the biggest opportunities I've had as a technical consultant is the chance to go through various plants across the world. I have visited power plants, refineries, food-processing plants, manufacturing facilities and a long list is following them. During these trips, I have found several recurring motor lubrication problems that seem to be diversified throughout the industry. The following is a list of the few common problems that needs to be completely avoided.

1. Lack of Practices

Great lubrication programs are only good as long as the people who use them have a great mind to use them. In several recent projects, the retirement of the technicians has been a big issue. As the qualified technicians are reaching retirement age and subsequently retiring, they are carrying along with them a great deal of experience and expertise of how they perform their jobs. For some plants, the position of a lube-tech professional may have been held by a one person for a couple of decades. These professionals are the masters of their professions and know every sight, sound and smell of their machinery. It is crucial to pass down this type of commitment and understanding to the new generation.

2. Improper Use of Lubrication

If used appropriately, motor lubrication analysis can be an extremely valuable practice. It enables you to determine not only the health of the oil , but also the health of the motor you are going to use this for. Apart from that, it also allows you to catch failures before they become serious. In order to get all the benefits of this analysis, you first must have the correct oil lubricator for your machinery.

There are several ways available to analyze the health of the lubricant. You can even talk to the manufacturer to know and analyze whether that particular lubrication will offer you its worth or not.

3. Overgreasing

Most plants I visit do not find that grease guns are accurate instruments. They also fail to address the issues caused by the improper use of grease guns. Pretty similar to several other people, I was told to grease a bearing by simply affixing the grease gun and working the lever until grease was seen flowing out from somewhere. While this may be a great way to do for hinge pins and other applications where overflowing grease won’t cause damage, it shouldn’t be used for several other grease applications. Overgreasing is a very normal issue and can result in higher operating temperatures, sudden bearing failure and a high threat of contaminant entrance.

All these aspects are extremely crucial to fix for keeping your machinery in optimum condition. Always remember, that a healthy lubrication is a key to maintaining the machinery and keeping it in utmost working condition.