Have you ever wondered why some things work great in certain places and fail in others? I have come to understand that when designing any type of lubrication system, the biggest obstacle we encounter isn’t always the machinery, but sometimes the customer themselves.
The interesting thing about doing what we do is that in many cases, thinking outside the box to achieve the results we know we can achieve, is not always dependent on how we hook it up, or the machine, or the type of lubricant used. It comes down to the attitude of the customer and the people operating the equipment. The funny thing about equipment is that if someone thinks it can’t work, it usually doesn’t. The opposite end is also true and if someone is impressed with what they see, they tend to push the envelope to see how far they can push while making something work, right up until they see a failure, then they pull back a little bit.
I like these types of people because I’m one of those guys myself.
Case in point; we recently installed one of our saw guide lubrication systems down in the southern US. The system they had provided no information as to what volumes they were flowing through for water or oil. It also tended to fight with itself on water and air pressures and so in order to make it work, things were set fairly high. This was not an economical way to run, as it used a lot more oil, and water, than what they needed to.
After we installed our system and got it all calibrated and set up to monitor water and oil flow, it provided them with information they had never had before and they were able to visually put together what they had been seeing and what the numbers on the screen meant. Based on the “starting point” we generally set these systems up at and the “starting point” the other systems were set at, we have come to learn that we have been very generous with the volumes in order to make sure there was enough water and oil to provide the protection needed. This also gives us some wiggle room as everything looks really good on paper, until you get into the real world. Then they don’t.
This is the part where the Progressive Conservatives come into the picture. This is not the Canadian political party by the way. The Conservatives would never change anything because it had “always been done that way” and leave the volumes set to the same point as before, because “this could never work they way you are telling me!”
The progressive ones usually say, “Hey, this is cool, how low can we go?” This last customer took the volumes we set up and cut them by more than half with results that even surprised me. We set the systems up with 0.1 GPM of water, per saw in idle and 0.15 GPM in the cut.
That translated to 1.0 GPM for 10 saws in idle and 1.5 GPM in the cut. They saw what this looked like compared to what it looked like before with the other system and told us it was a bit high, so we lowered it to 0.8 GPM and 1.1 GPM respectively. That was still too much. They then went to 0.6 and 1.0 and so on… They ended up setting the system to 0.4 GPM in idle and 0.8 GPM in the cut, a reduction of 60% and 57%! The oil was reduced as dramatically as well.
These were huge numbers even in my mind, because we had never had a customer willing to take that much of a risk to see where the edge was before. We had a few customers that were running less than what we set up, but nothing close to this. I wouldn’t have gone there, but primarily because it was not my equipment and I wouldn’t want to be responsible for any incurred damages.
My motto is “I’ll try anything, once!” …and no, I didn’t grow up in the 70’s.
Author: Dean Maier
Dean has been in the automated lubrication business for 25 years, with 85% of that time spent in forestry applications. We are delighted to have his insight with this latest blog.
Industrial Autolube International Inc.
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