Food Solution

Challenge

A competitor’s mounted ball bearings were failing during the harvest season, resulting in costly unplanned downtime. They were using nickel-plated cast iron housing with thin but dense chrome-plated insert bearings. The dumping action from the hopper caused a high shock load and some housings would crack under the load. This caused the nickel to flake or peel off of the cast iron and mix into the processed vegetables. Additional problems included bearing seizures and lock-ups.

Solution

The innovator’s solution at Regal was to perform a thorough review of the application. They then selected the SealMaster^® PN Gold mounted ball bearing with high strength passivated 316 stainless-steel housing to replace the old design. The SealMaster stainless-steel housing has superior strength to nickel-plated cast iron and does not flake. The high performance, triple lip seal outperforms the competition’s seal, so the customer decided to use the reduced maintenance version to eliminate the cost of relubrication.