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Do You Know the 4 Stages of Bearing Failure?

How do you know if a bearing is about to fail? Bearings don’t last forever and can be damaged if proper precautions are not taken, so it’s important to know the signs of impending bearing failure. In this blog, we will go over the four stages of bearing failure and how this tends to show…

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What is Fluting and How to Fix It

  Fluting can be an issue on bearings if you don’t know how to look for the signs. In this post we will cover what fluting is and how to fix it when it occurs.  First, what is fluting? Fluting is damage caused to a bearing due to an electrical current induced on the shaft…

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Bearing Installation and Maintenance: What You Need to Know

Bearings are essential to all rotating machinery. They are small but mighty–if bearings aren’t healthy, a machine will not function at optimum levels. In this post we provide you with some information and best practices for bearing installation and maintenance. Let’s start with the very basics–what are bearings? A bearing is a machine component that:…

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What You Need to Know about Bearing Lubrication

  Proper lubrication of bearings is essential if you want to maintain your machines at optimum levels.  Did you know it is estimated that 40-50 percent of bearing failures are the result of improper greasing/lubrication? That’s a significantly high percentage! So what can you do to ensure you are properly lubricating your bearings? Two things…

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How to Calculate F-MAX

Do you know how to calculate F-MAX or even what F-MAX is? Knowing how to calculate F-MAX is an important part of vibration analysis because many different types of faults can be shown at multiples of the running speed, which is otherwise known as 1x.  But first, what is F-MAX? F-MAX means “Frequency Max.” This…

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What You Need to Know about Different Bearing Types

As anyone who works with rotating machinery knows, bearings are essential to machine functions. One of the first things to know about bearings is that there are two main types. We will go over these two main types and more in this installment of our Condition Monitoring Basics series of blog posts. The two main…

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The Importance of Mechanical Skills in the Data Center: Lubrication

Another important skill a data center maintenance worker needs is an understanding of the fundamentals of lubrication. Although lubrication may seem simple, there is a good deal of skill behind knowing proper lubrication methods, quantities, and the difference between over and under lubrication. And because under or over lubrication can cause serious problems such as…

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Reduce Force to Maximize L10 Bearing Life

Simply put, L10 bearing life is the number of service hours that 90% of bearings will survive or conversely 10% of bearings will have failed. L10 life: is the preferred term in specifying bearing life and is defined by The American Bearing Manufacturers Association (ABMA). A bearing life equation is: This calculation assumes proper installation…

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MACHINERY VIBRATION PROBLEMS – PART 4 BEARINGS

  In industrial machinery, the centerpiece of vibration analysis is the ability to detect bearing problems BEFORE the bearing fails.  Even more beneficial is detecting the root cause of a bearing problem before damage is done. The bearing really is the heart of the rotating machine.  There’s a plethora of bearing types and designs. There…

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