Stainless corrosion benefits in cheese manufacture

Australia's number one cheese manufacturer replaces existing conventional motors with Marlin Stainless units, to eliminate corrosion and its consequent maintenance/hygiene implications

As part of an on-going process of maintaining the highest quality standards in conjunction with meticulous attention to hygiene, Australia's number one cheese manufacturer, the Bega Co-operative Society, is now implementing a policy of replacing existing conventional DC and AC motors with stainless units, to eliminate problems relating to salt-initiated corrosion and its consequent maintenance/hygiene implications.

The motors being replaced are employed on salt blowers and pumps at the Bega plant in North Bega, NSW and they range in size up to 7.5kW.

The problems experienced with the DC motors were corrosion of the brushes and motor housing; the first causing time consuming maintenance with the additional risk of intermittent malfunction between routine maintenance duties and the second potential corrosion flaking in a hygiene-sensitive environment.

Like the DC motors the AC machines experienced housing corrosion but in addition, also suffered from moisture ingress.

The introduction of the Marlin Stainless motors has eliminated these problems at the Bega Valley plant, where 500 employees produce some 14,000 tonnes of cheddar annually as well as 7,000 tonnes of whey powder and 800 tonnes of butter for home and export markets.

"Where we have installed the Marlin Motors they have eliminated all the corrosion and maintenance problems we experienced with the original mild steel motors", said Phil Scheibel, Electrical Supervisor at Bega Cheese.

"We installed the first machines 2 years ago and they're still running great.

With the original motors we would have been lucky if they got much past 12 months.

What's more, we're not fitting protective shrouds for the Marlin Motors like we have done in the past on previous models.

Because they are doing such a great job we have got some of the stainless motors on the shelf so we can drop them in as the old machines fail.

We're really pleased with their performance!" The motors were supplied by Lafert EM Australia, in Melbourne, a sister company of AEG Electric Motors.

To date, motors ranging in size from 0.37kW to 7.5kW have been installed, either as TENV or TEFC machines.

The principal merits of the Marlin Stainless motors are their IP66 rating (which makes them suitable for high-pressure hose-downs), corrosion resistance, a smooth body that will not harbour infection risk residues, and IEC standard metric dimensions that make the motors easy to install as ideal retrofit items, plus Marlin offer a full range of mounting options.

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