New Danfoss VLTÂ® Decentral Drive E cient, reliable and powerful

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Extend your chain lives at no extra cost Simply by looking for signs of early wear and eliminating the cause, engineers can prolong the lives of conveyor and transmission chain without incurring any extra costs, says Renold Chain’s marketing communications manager, David Turner, in the first article in a series. BEARINGS, BELTS & CHIAINS Standard roller chain is designed to last at least 15,000 hours. Certain unavoidable factors may shorten a chain’s life, but if chain is routinely needing to be replaced before this, then it is worth checking to see if anything can be done to extend its working life. Often it can. If it were possible to get just 10% more life out of every strand of chain on every production line and machine in a factory, the savings would be enormous when extrapolated over a year – not just in terms of reduced chain replacement costs, but also through reduced downtime. Every year, our engineers come across dozens of cases where chain has worn prematurely due to relatively minor problems that could have been put right quite easily. When you consider that some production lines are running hundreds – possibly thousands – of metres of chain, it’s not difficult to work out that if each strand could be made to last longer, then real savings could be made across the whole factory. Even small operations can benefit from extended chain lives, especially when all that may be needed is a little time to investigate operating conditions and to consider maintenance routines. To find out where the tweaks and adjustments might be needed, first undertake a thorough visual inspection of the chain while it is not running. Just as a forensic pathologist can look at a dead body and determine the cause of death, if a chain is suffering from premature wear, there will be visual signs that can be spotted easily. Although failure to lubricate chain correctly might seem an obvious cause of early wear, it is still the most common Fig. 1: Fretting corrosion can result from poor lubrication Fig. 2: Misalignments can result in side-plate wear reason for premature failure. Checking your lubrication regime should be a top priority. Check that each chain is being lubricated regularly with the correct lubricant, referring to the manufacturer’s lubrication guides. Fig. 1 shows an example of conveyor chain where scoring and heavy red deposits are a clear sign of fretting corrosion. This is caused by marginal lubrication where there is not enough lubricant present to prevent the asperities on the chain’s components rubbing together. In such a case, lubricate the chain thoroughly to wash out some of the oxide, and monitor it regularly. The chain should then be lubricated regularly and correctly to prevent the problem from recurring. The transmission chain in Fig. 2 is showing signs of wear on the face and the end of the sideplates. The reason for this type of wear is misalignment, which causes abrasion with a fixed point on the circuit. From the wear pattern, it looks as if the chain may have worn its guides too, so it should be easy to spot the point of contact. The remedy is to realign the chain before the damage becomes any more serious and the chain needs to be replaced. Renold has produced a free troubleshooter guide, available as a downloadable PDF from its Web site (www.renold.com). The guide documents dozens of examples of the sort of conditions that will cause premature failures, and provides fix-it advice on rectifying the problems. Doing this can increase the chain’s working life significantly, postpone replacement costs and cut downtime. D&C When chain does eventually need replacing there are more opportunities for improving performance. This will be examined in the next article in this series. www.drives.co.uk November/December 2010 37
Page 1 and 2: DRIVES & CONTROLS www.drives.co.uk
Page 3 and 4: VLT® Decentral Drive FCD 302 I VLT
Page 5 and 6: DRIVES & CONTROLS Editor Tony Sacks
Page 7 and 8: UK industry ‘is not managing its
Page 9 and 10: more than just a pretty interface.
Page 12 and 13: Mechanical drives factory moves to
Page 14 and 15: Wow, why is this so easy? Because e
Page 16 and 17: TECHNOLOGY Motion system can cut mo
Page 18 and 19: TECHNOLOGY Motor-mounting drives
Page 20: TECHNOLOGY IN BRIEF The OPC Foundat
Page 23 and 24: Simple servodrive can be tailored t
Page 25 and 26: elsewhere; and • restoring system
Page 27 and 28: LINEAR MOTION Museum’s 4D ride ha
Page 29 and 30: Application Door closer mechanism f
Page 31 and 32: Cantilever axis assists tobacco-cut
Page 33 and 34: Bearing up to electrical erosion Va
Page 35 and 36: PARTNERSHIP BASED ON TRUST - AND TR
Page 37 and 38: Your life in our hands. INDUSTRIAL
Page 39: Falcon HTC Falcon HTC
Page 44 and 45: PLCs AND HMIs method and the sealin
Page 46 and 47: Experience is our Strength )))!&'$"
Page 48 and 49: PLCs AND HMIs What can HMIs learn f
Page 50 and 51: GAMBICA VIEWPOINT Taking the open r
Page 52 and 53: Sponsored column No. 3 November/Dec
Page 54 and 55: MULTIMEDIA Blogging site aims to co
Page 56 and 57: SENSORS Cable extension sensors hav
Page 58: CONTROL CNC offers a choice of driv
Page 61 and 62: DRIVES AND CONTROLS EXHIBITION 2010
Page 63 and 64: 1 HPMG Hangzhou Permanent Magnet Gr
Page 65 and 66: To advertise contact Simon Langston

New Danfoss VLTÂ® Decentral Drive E cient, reliable and powerful

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