Environmental contaminants such as dirt, machining chips and condensation can wear down a slide and degrade accuracy.
Accuracy is important in the manu-facturing industry, and properly functioning machinery is an essential building block to meeting many industry standards.
Slides are often found in machinery that is running eight or more hours a day, sometimes seven days a week. This ongoing use as well as environmental factors — such as dirt, machining chips and condensation — can contribute to failure of the slide, and therefore an inability to create quality components.
“Basically, there’s going to be two reasons why you would need a slide repaired: one is, something breaks — or the other thing is just the accuracy,” said Dale Blank, Gilman engineering supervisor. “A slide will wear, the moving members will wear — and when you lose the accuracy, whether it’s tracking, the height or whatever … then you’re not making good parts with it.”
Proper lubrication is an essential factor in maintaining a slide. Using way oil and not grease for lubrication is an important distinction, because grease will often bring in contaminants that will wear down the component’s surfaces — so it’s important to keep those contaminants out.
If a slide is in need of repair, have as much information available about the slide as possible, including the slide’s length, width, type of slide and what problems it’s having.
Once a slide comes in, and based on the urgency that you provide, vendors will evaluate the slide condition to determine what exactly is wrong with it and what is needed to fix it.
Gilman Precision
www.gilmanprecision.com
Filed Under: Linear Motion Tips, LINEAR MOTION, MOTION CONTROL
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