Thread: Oil type for Automatic Oiler Question

I would probably use a 68 slideway or hydraulic.

Hi Ray,
Thats asking to much of my memory.lol
Is the auto lube separate from the powerfeed?(the table X is hydraulic?)
Stuart

Hi Stuart, Pipeclay

The hydraulic system is seperate to the lubrication system.

I made the mistake of reading some of the PM forum discussions on way oils, and one of the characteristics of suitable way oils is (so far as I can understand) the ability to stay put on vertical surfaces, the automatic oiler just pumps oil continuously onto the ways, so hence the suggestion of a lighter less viscous oil. There is the other issue of how it "floats", that is the sliding bed floats on a film of oil, and I guess the thickness of the film depends on the oil type..

Some of those discussions on PM seem to go way off the deep end...

Regards
Ray

Hello Ray,

The equivalent viscosity for SAE 30 is ISO 100. My suggestion is to find a suitable industrial oil in this grade; after all, the manufacturer of the machine should know best. All the major oil companies have suitable oils, your main problem is finding anything packaged in less than 20 litres. If this is a pumped supply, you don't need a way oil which contains a tackiness compound as with Mobil Vactra or Shell Zaria.

Regards,
Chas.

Oils lol, is there anything in the shed that starts more threads than oils?
I think the grinders I ran had only one oil tank(the spindles had their own oil) but its been to long sorry. Other than that Chas has pretty much covered my thoughts.
Stuart

Hi All,

After much reading and confusion, I've come to the conclusion that a lot of manufacturers information on oils is misleading and more like snake oil than anything else, can anyone believe that magnatec has "intelligent molecules" ...

For the surface grinder, i'll do an experiment, first with a multigrade 10W-30 non detergent, then the next refill, I'll go with Waylube Light (ISO 68), the main difference between the two is the waylube has the tackifiers, which hold better on vertical and angled surfaces, in this case the autolube system pumps onto the ways continuously, so tackifiers probably don't matter as much.

The other issue is stiction, since the surface grinder is hydraulically driven, the only time it stops is at the travel limits before reversing, so stiction shouldn't be an issue.

The final issue is film thickness, and this is one area where the waylube might win out, if you can believe the blurb about maintaining a film under higher pressure...

Oils ain't oils, it is a religion...

Regards
Ray

Seeing that your lube is a continuos flow have you bothered to check the flow rates,hopefully the size of the orifice will be stamped on the metering valve,I suppose depending on the flow rate,this could have a bearing on the type/viscosity of oil used.

Originally Posted by pipeclay

Seeing that your lube is a continuos flow have you bothered to check the flow rates,hopefully the size of the orifice will be stamped on the metering valve,I suppose depending on the flow rate,this could have a bearing on the type/viscosity of oil used.

The flow rate will be higher with ISO 68, as compared with SAE30, is that what you mean?

Not really if the Flow rate was low on the Vertical Slide the 68 being sticky may be better than the 30.
I would of thought that they would of had different valving on different parts of the machine.
In reality you would mainly be interested in making sure your longitudinal and cross feed slides had plenty of lube,as these are in constant use when machine is running,where as the vertical is only adjusted at the end of each pass.

Hi PC,

I see what you mean, I'll keep a record of run-time vs oil usage rate and see what the difference is. Thanks for the tip.

Regards
Ray

Don't use a multigrade....because that's what it means....multi...grade, IE at lower temps is at the high end of range and as the temp increases the viscosity decreases, not what you need.

If the book states 30 use it...it's readily available just about anywhere, even in 5lt containers.

Originally Posted by ravna

Don't use a multigrade....because that's what it means....multi...grade, IE at lower temps is at the high end of range and as the temp increases the viscosity decreases, not what you need.

If the book states 30 use it...it's readily available just about anywhere, even in 5lt containers.

Hi Ravna,

Good point, multigrade isn't appropriate for the temperatures likely to be encountered on machine tools. I'm not working that fast

Regards
Ray

Originally Posted by ravna

Don't use a multigrade....because that's what it means....multi...grade, IE at lower temps is at the high end of range and as the temp increases the viscosity decreases, not what you need.

If the book states 30 use it...it's readily available just about anywhere, even in 5lt containers.

I think that I know what you mean here, but but although the viscosity will decrease at higher temperatures, the viscosity index is higher at elevated temperatures, and lower at low temperatures.
In other words, an oil of 10W40 spec behaves as SAE10 when cold, but is like SAE40 at high temperatures.
This makes it easy to crank over a cold engine at say 0 degrees Celcius, but the oil behaves as the thicker SAE40 when the engine heats up, and maintains a suitable oil film between bearing surfaces when hot.
I have an interesting anecdote from my time working at a mine in the 1970s and 80s. They had a mixed fleet of Terrex and Caterpillar 80 tonne dump-trucks, which once they were out of warranty, they used the one oil for engines, transmissions and Hydraulic systems. As I recall it wasn't a straight engine oil that they used, but was ok in the big trucks, so it was then used in the light vehicle fleet as well. Apparently it satisfied the oil spec. for the vehicles and had been given the go-ahead by Ampol who were the suppliers. For some time everything went as expected, but then one by one the Falcon engined F100s that we had, started to break down with the drive gear on the camshaft for the distributor, having worn to the point that the gear on the distributor drive shaft, started to jump teeth and the Ign. timing was lost. Long story shortened, it was found that although the oil satisfied the then current SAE spec., (probably about SD or SE at that time), it did not suit the engine. Furthermore, it was discovered that there were also issues with cam lobes wearing, but not where you might have expected. they were wearing on the side of the lobe where it was lowering the valve back to the seat, rather than when the cam was pushing the valve open. There was some techno babble from Ampols lubrication engineers, to the effect that there were pressure sensitive viscosity modifiers, whose function was to raise the viscosity when the oil was put under pressure, presumably to help maintain the integrity of the oil film when the pressure was on, but in the case when the pressure was being released, as when the valve was closing, you could get a kind of "negative viscosity" as an unintended consequence. All I know is that the falcon engines stopped having problems when they went to Castrol GTX, and later on to Ampol Super GT. Those ford engines were the only ones to present this problem, all the Toyotas, Mazdas, Internationals Bedfords and Izuzus +probably others I have forgotten never showed any problems that I know of. As Sol used to say, "Oils aint oils."