Fluoramics LOX-8® Grease Extends Operating Life of Toggle Valve
LOX-8® Grease, by Fluoramics, Inc., is proven to extend the operating life of a toggle valve by 26 times.
Instron, a worldwide leader in the materials testing industry, manufactures and services sophisticated machines that test the mechanical properties of a wide range of materials, components, and structures.
Steve McMahon has been a Mechanical Engineer at Instron for 36 years. Recently, he needed a better lubricant for sliding components inside a tensile testing grip, and he immediately thought to use LOX-8 Grease.
“Instron is best known for our tensile testers – machines that sit on tables and pulls things apart to determine tensile properties,” says McMahon. “As a member of our Sustaining Engineering Group, my job is to solve problems that our customers might be having in the field. We received a call from a customer regarding the hand-actuated toggle valve that opens and closes the pneumatic side action grips on their tensile tester. The customer said that the valve leaked air for a few days and then stopped working altogether after about 30,000 or so tests.”
McMahon said, “The valve, manufactured by a third party, used a silicone-based lubricant between two sliding parts (nickel-plated brass against stainless steel). We suspected that silicone might not be the right lubricant.”
McMahon explained, “I had a tub of LOX-8 Grease in our supply cabinet that worked great when I used it on some pivoting arms on another Instron product. Since then, it has always been my go-to lubricant. I was very confident the LOX-8 Grease would work well in this application as well.”
McMahon and his team decided to do their own lubrication study of LOX-8 Grease by building a cycler that would simultaneously exercise six pneumatic toggle valves. He knew that typically a customer might flip this toggle every two minutes while doing their tensile testing, but with this cycler, he was able to achieve three testing cycles per second – a rate that would quickly give them a clear picture of the performance of LOX-8 Grease.
“We were able to reach one million cycles on our cycler in just four days!” says McMahon. “We quickly found that the LOX-8 Grease could give the valve a lifetime of 800,000 cycles compared with the 30,000 from the silicone-based lubricant. That’s 26 times the lubrication life of the old lubricant. We even added iron oxide debris into the toggle valve and the LOX-8 still performed very well up to this 800,000 threshold.
“We asked our valve supplier to use LOX-8 Grease according to our drawing that showed the grease points. All of our toggle valves now use LOX-8 Grease on the sliding parts.”
LOX-8 Grease is a PTFE lubricant and NLGI 1 grease. Use LOX-8 Grease in environments where extended service life is important: medical, nuclear and other high-tech fields including chemical processing, industrial gases and other aggressive applications. Use when greasing oxygen service bearings, valves, Orings, pumps and regulators. Approved for use in food processing facilities. Fire resistant.
Fluoramics, Inc. is a leading manufacturer of sealants, greases, lubricants and rust inhibitors, all of which are engineered PTFE solutions. Founded in 1967, the company is based in Winona, Minnesota, and proudly manufactures all of its products in the United States. To learn more about Fluoramics’ products, please visit the company's website at www.fluoramics.com.