Product category:
Bearings, lubrication, oil and filters
News Release from: Baldor UK | Subject: Dodge Grip Tight
Edited by the Processingtalk Editorial
Team on 15 November 2007
Innovative ball bearings double
machinery uptime
An innovative adapter-mounted ball bearing system has improved reliability and transformed the economics of maintaining the tyre shredding machines at Sapphire Energy Recovery
Switching to the Dodge Grip Tight bearing, which features a flinger seal and a built-in mechanism for removing the bearing from the shaft, has completely resolved a recurrent - and expensive - repair problem Sapphire Energy Recovery operates high-throughput shredding machines in four major conurbations throughout the UK, providing a sustainable solution for end-of-life car and van tyres by processing them into chips
This article was originally published on Processingtalk on 12 Sep 2007 at 8.00am (UK)
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These chips are then used as an alternative to coal in cement manufacture.
After shredding, the tyre chips are graded for size by a classifier with 36 sets of bearings.
The classifier shafts use set-screw style bearings, which were being damaged, by both the fine metal wires in the tyres, and the water used for cooling.
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As a result they had a life, typically, of less than 6 months.
Changing the classifier bearings could then take anything up to two hours per bearing, depending on the problems encountered and the skill of the operators.
Corrosion sometimes meant that the bearings needed to be loosened by heat, for example, and in some cases the whole shaft had to be replaced.
Sapphire is the leading UK end of life car and van tyre processor, and its processing centres often operate for 24 hours a day.
Addressing the planned and emergency maintenance requirements of these machines became a priority for the Sapphire Reliability Manager, Andy Booth, and he called in the specialist Dodge distributor, Bearing Transmission and Pneumatics, to discuss the problem.
Bearing Transmission and Pneumatics suggested that Sapphire try a type of ball bearing from the Baldor range, called the Dodge Grip Tight.
This adapter-style bearing has a mechanical maintenance feature that loosens it by simply turning a nut.
The action automatically pulls the bearing off, avoiding any need for forcible removal or expansion heating - eliminating fretting corrosion and preventing shaft damage.
The bearings were a little more expensive more than the set screw type that Sapphire had been using, but demonstrations - and examples of field experience in the most hostile conditions - convinced Andy Booth that the easy-off mechanism would make change-overs a predictable operation.
Sapphire purchased some Grip Tight bearings and installed them as and when the previous bearings failed.
Although predictable maintenance was the major requirement, it soon became obvious that the bearings offered a superior life too, as the life period came and went.
The Grip Tight also has a built-in flinger seal, protecting the bearings in the hostile environment to such as en extent that they are lasting typically twice as long as the previous set screw types.
Now, following the use of Grip Tight over a period of some 24 months, and a number of maintenance change-overs, Andy Booth knows that the Grip Tight justifies its reputation: changeovers are predictable and take only 15 minutes maximum following production operator training, including the time required to remove and refit machine casings.
Moreover, there has been no shaft damage to date.
"The aggressive nature of tyre shredding meant that repairing these machines was taking up far too much of our time, and reducing our productivity", says Andy Booth: "Grip Tight bearings have given us back predictability of maintenance, with the welcome bonus of much longer life, protecting some of our most crucial assets.
Our operational team now has the time to be more pro-active, focusing its major efforts on preventive maintenance rather than breakdown maintenance".
"Our work means that we tend to see a lot of bearing failures, and we've come to regard the Dodge Grip Tight as a genuine problem solver", says Edward Fielding of Bearing Transmission and Pneumatics: "Although the major requirement was to simplify changeover, this bearing also manages to survive much longer in these very hostile operating conditions". Request a free brochure from Baldor UK ...
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