How to clean up on maintenance

In a dusty environment particles can quickly build up on the pulleys, where it acts as a lubricant; reducing the friction and causing slip therefore reducing the power being transmitted and the efficiency of the drive – by as much as 5%.

Somebody once advised to forget dusting because ‘after a year the dust doesn’t get any worse’. But he obviously wasn’t thinking about a quarry. And since proper maintenance of heavy machinery is a lot more involved than a bit of light dusting, you’d be ill-advised to abandon it. But simply by changing to a new kind of belt drive for your machinery, you could actually eliminate the need for maintenance even in the dustiest, dirtiest working environment.

At the moment, if you’re working in a quarrying environment, you are almost certainly using wedge or vee belts for the drives on, for example, your high power compressors, slurry pumps and crushers. (In fact, in any industry where you need to transmit high torque effectively in an adverse environment, you’ll probably be using the same.) This belt design uses friction between the belt itself and the pulley to transmit power, and when first installed can be as much as 95% efficient. However, in a dusty environment particles can quickly build up on the pulleys, where it acts as a lubricant; reducing the friction and causing slip therefore reducing the power being transmitted and the efficiency of the drive – by as much as 5%. That’s when the need for maintenance comes in: involving downtime, incurring costs, and having a negative impact on productivity.

As an alternative, the Conti Synchrochain® synchronous belt is maintenance-free, and provides maximum power transmission and maximum resistance to an adverse environment.

Whilst a vee belt will need inspecting for wear and tension at regular intervals, possibly once a quarter, the Conti Synchrochain will never need checking. Which means over the average 25,000 hour lifetime of a belt, you’ll save several maintenance inspections and associated downtime costs. And better still, it’s more efficient than a vee belt to start with – at approximately 98% – and it stays that way too.

Replacing a belt but leaving a worn pulley in place will do little to restore the efficiency of a drive, and the belt will have a far shorter life than it should. However, it’s quick and easy to tell whether a pulley needs replacing, with the Fenner Pulley groove gauge – available free of charge from ERIKS. Simply contact your local ERIKS service centre for your free gauge.