Today at SMB Bearings...

A rare sight recently - SMB bathed in sunshine!

Our warehouse colleague Colin is rather pleased with Oxford Unite's 2-0 victory over Millwall last night & so produced this rather creative display to share his pleasure with our Flight Logistics driver (a Millwall supporter)...

Our nutty professors, Aaron & Jeff, hard at work in the technical suite - they re-lubricate bearings to your specific requirements & this is where the magic happens!

And this is where we keep Jeff when he's been naughty...

SMB Bearings Ltd, our new office - a room with a view!

The work on our new premises continues apace & we look all set for our move at the end of September - you can see some of the progress below:

Check out the view from our new offices...

...compared to the current office's vista (pictured above), it's going to be amazing!! :-)

The lighting & heating have been installed in the vast warehouse...

The office & technical areas, as seen from the warehouse...

The technician's re-lubrication lair is still a little bare, but all the equipment should be arriving in the next three weeks

The lovely Jason, from Tapper Interiors, who has been working so hard for us

Our view from the office into the warehouse...

It will be wonderful to have so much warehouse space for our expanding product range & we look forward very much to welcoming clients in our new meeting room & office suite.  

WE CAN'T WAIT!!

SMB, Camera, Action! A case study in bearing lubrication...

We all know that bearings are used in an amazing array of products, but we thought it would be interesting to focus on how important the correct lubrication can be to efficient bearing use (& how the wrong choices can be disastrous for customers' final products).

We asked Chris (our MD & technical wizard) to give us an example:

"A manufacturer of security cameras approached us with an urgent problem.  In certain weather conditions, particularly colder weather, a mist was appearing on the inside of the camera dome, blurring the image.

 After some discussion, we realized that the problem was caused by out-gassing (releasing gas previously trapped in the lubricant) of the bearing grease.  The bearings in the motors that controlled the camera were becoming warm during operation and this was enough for the grease to give off a very fine oil mist which condensed on the inside of the colder camera dome.

The customer needed to solve the problem and ship out products within a matter of weeks.  They were not satisfied with the level of support from their existing supplier and had been quoted long lead times for bearings with non-standard grease (this can often be many months).

They approached SMB Bearings Ltd as bearing re-lubrication specialists and, after researching potential replacement greases with a number of lubricant manufacturers, our in-house re-lubrication facility allowed us to quickly supply samples of different bearing types containing various specialist greases.  With the help of our high precision weighing equipment, we were even able to offer a choice of non-standard grease fills for the customer to test .

In a short time, we were able to identify a grease type and grease fill that cured the oil misting problem and saved the customer weeks of downtime".  Thanks Chris.  So next time you're caught on camera, you can think of our bearings!

If you need any help with bearing or lubrication issues, please contact us & we'll use our years of specialist technical knowledge to help resolve your issues.

Bearing Lubrication - the importance of lubricant selection for ball bearings

You may not have given it much thought, but what's inside your bearing can be crucial to it's future survival...

When a bearing must perform under demanding conditions, the lubricant selection becomes critical. Lubrication will affect life, torque, speed, noise, grease migration out gassing, temperature and rust prevention of the bearing.

Two basic types of lubricants available are oil and grease.

Applications that require extremely low torque or narrow range of torque variation are suited to use oil as a lubricant. Depending on the application, it is possible that an oil lubricant may not meet a specific requirement. Grease is an oil to which a thickener has been added.

A technician adds oil lubricant to a bearing

Oil

Oil is the basic lubricant for ball bearings. Previously most lubricating oil was refined from petroleum. Today, however, synthetic oils such as diesters, silicone polymers, and fluorinated compounds have found acceptance because of improvements in properties.

Compared to petroleum base oils, diesters in general have better low temperature properties, lower volatility, and better temperature/viscosity characteristics. Silicones and fluorinated compounds possess even lower volatility and wider temperature/viscosity properties.

Grease

Grease is an oil to which a thickener has been added to prevent oil migration from the lubrication site. It is used in situations where frequent replenishment of the lubricant is undesirable or impossible. All of the oil types mentioned here can be used as grease bases to which are added metallic soaps, synthetic fillers and thickeners.

The operative properties of grease depend almost wholly on the base oil. Other factors being equal, the use of grease rather than oil results in higher starting and running torque and can limit the bearing to lower speeds.

Grease additives include rust inhibitors, extreme pressure additives (EP), oxidation preventatives, etc. Because of the wide variety and complexity of additives, the characteristics of similar greases change considerably from one manufacturer to another.

Some of our grease lubricant

And just when you think you've got the hang of it, there are also:

Dry Lubricants 

Used primarily in vacuum applications or where standard lubricants are unsuitable. AT SMB we use graphite based dry lubricants and also molybdenum disulfide for their hardwearing and low friction properties and the fact that they insoluble in water and dilute acids. It is also effective within a wide temperature range of -180 to +300°C.   

Molybdenum disulfide powder - before it is applied

By burnishing the balls and raceways of a bearing, friction is reduced allowing higher speeds than with dry bearings. This also gives improved performance in vacuum applications.

At SMB we take lubricant selection very seriously & all our bearings come lubricated as standard with high quality lubrication. We can also assist with specialist lubrication requirements, using our on-site re-lubrication facilities - to handle everything from food safe applications to low torque conditions. We regularly supply our bearings or the customers' own bearings with:

• dampening greases 
• dry lubricants 
• food safe greases 
• high temperature lubricants 
• low temperature lubricants 
• low torque lubricants 
• molybdenum disulphide coating 
• perfluorinated lubricants 
• radiation-resistant lubricants 
• vacuum lubricants 
• waterproof greases

Please contact us if you'd like any more information about the re-lubrication of your bearings.

Re-lubricating bearings with non removable shields...

SMB Bearings have been re-lubricating bearings for over twenty years but, more recently, we began to work on the problem of how to re-lubricate bearings with non-removable shields.

The grease needs to be correctly located in the raceways, properly distributed around the bearing and there must be just the right amount depending on customer requirements.

After much thought and many months of testing, SMB bearings developed a bespoke re-lubrication system that allows us to provide correctly lubricated bearings, with a grease weight of the customer's choice and, very importantly, without removing the shields.

Shield removal can damage the shields, making it impossible to re-fit them. This is even more difficult with smaller bearings unless they have circlip retained shields. This technology is used weekly to re-lubricate both our own bearings and customer-supplied bearings

SMB's bearing relubrication facility...

Did you know that we can relubricate bearings for you, for many different uses? 

We offer a relubrication service, for either our own miniature bearings or customer supplied bearings.  You can even supply your own lubricant to us.  We have our own facility here at SMB bearings & can quickly solve a wide range of issues for you. 

Most manufacturers will only offer specialist lubrication in large volume orders, but we have no minimum order quantity for this service, so if you just need a small quantity for a bespoke application, or for testing, we can help.  If you have an emergency, we'll be flexible in supplying the bearings to you asap, you won't have to wait for a factory to produce 1000's of bearings... 

We have many years of experience in degreasing and re-lubricating stainless steel, chrome steel, and hybrid bearings with customer specified lubricants.

We regularly supply our bearings, or your own bearings, with:

dampening greases

dry lubricants

food safe greases

high temperature lubricants

low temperature lubricants

low torque lubricants

molybdenum disulphide coating

perfluorinated lubricants

radiation-resistant lubricants

vacuum lubricants

waterproof greases

Why not contact us with your requirements & our skilled technicians can advise you...