Maintenance Tips for Machinery Equipment

To keep your machinery at good working order, constant maintenance is required. Problems arises when machinery equipment are poorly maintained resulting to breakdowns and unwanted downtime. Aside from that, repairs or even replacement of the whole machine is costly and would damage your profits.

In order to protect your investments, we’ve compiled a list of tips on how to maintain your machinery equipment.

1.       Operator Training

The skill of operator is important in order for a machine to work properly. One should be able to know the machinery they are working on, be able to conduct proper checking or inspections, apply basic maintenance and troubleshooting and more.

Be sure to keep your machinery operators on constant training to keep up with the technologies today.

2.       Add and Test Lubricants

Friction creates heat and too much heat can deteriorate your machinery. Thus lubrication is very important. Lubricants reduce friction around any moving parts and scheduling lubrication maintenance extends the life of machinery moving parts. Remember to check signs of excess oil or grease buildup on pistons. Check leaks around oil seals and make sure to read the manufacturer’s recommendations on lubricants.

3.       Check for signs of wear

Constant vibration, shock, high temperature, friction and age contribute to the breakdown of the parts of machinery. Thus, checking the machine for wear will definitely help you with your maintenance routine.

·         Shock comes from accidents and from poor operation techniques

·         Vibration can come from gears and belts that are out of alignment

·         Poor lubrication, friction and worn parts causes high temperature

·         Age is a factor for key components of the machine. Seals will crack, bolts will loosen and stretch out of shape, belts will warp, etc.

If you are able to discover these factors, be sure to treat the cause of the problem immediately. Unable to replace the damaged components will lead into a more problems.

4.       Keep your Work Environment Clean

Contamination of the machine can lead into deterioration. Thus, seals and filters should always be cleaned and checked. Seals should be checked if they’re in good condition and filters should be changed regularly.

5.       Have your Maintenance Scheduled

A scheduled and systematic time for Machinery maintenance is needed to make sure that it doesn’t disrupt the work process inside your company. For example, some components are going to last for a period of time and having records of these would help you determine when to change the given component.

Hydraulic Troubleshooting

When problems arise, the operator should be the one to conduct Machinery troubleshooting and if you can repair the hydraulic, it would save you a lot of money. But how will you do it?  Here are some tips you could follow.

1.       Check the cartridge valve before replacement

If it is a cartridge valve, pull out the manifold and check the nose of the cartridge. If you can see the screen then check if it is clean and try blowing an air compressor in it. If you can’t see the screens then try pushing on the nose of the screw driver.

2.       Coolant in Hydraulic Oil

Lathe

·         Make sure that the center cap on the chuck is installed

·         And if the Chip tray clogged in back of actuator, draw tube on the opposite side of the chuck. Check that the drain hose is not clogged.

Horizontal or Vertical Machine Center

·         The rotary table seals inside are bad

·         Draw bar sometimes has hydraulics and coolant going through them and there are possible seals bad.

3.       Low Hydraulic Pressure

·         Variable Displacement Pump

Check the compensator pressure settings. Some pumps have both a flow setting and pressure adjustment valve. If there is only one, it should be pressure setting. There will also be a separate manifold with the relief valve that should be set at a minimum of 200PSI or higher.

·         Variable Speed Motor

It controls the pump flow. Pumps have a transducer that is faulty. Also the settings we’re different from the display. Check the relief valve cartridge is not open. Remove the cartridge and look for dirt in the nose valve

·         Fixed Displacement Pump with Dump Valve

First, check the relief settings. The relief can be adjusted when the dump valve is energized only. Also, make sure that the relief and dump cartridge are not stuck open. Remove the cartridges and look for the dirt inside the nose of the valve.