Punch Press Slide Lubrication - How to Not Leak Oil

[MocBlock]

We have a large punch press that uses a lot of oil (~a gallon a day). I'm told that this "leak" isn't really a leak, but the way the slides on the press lubricate themselves.

Questions that I have:
- Does this amount of oil leakage for lubrication sound reasonable?
- Has anyone done anything in the past to reuse this lubrication oil? Our plant is a little dirty, so we'd probably have to use a filter if we recycle the oil.
- Has anyone done anything to make refilling of the machine easier, such as having a 55 gallon oil drum right next to the press and connected with a hose?

Thanks much for any input!

 

[MikeHalloran]

Large machine tools are usually/nearly always fitted with highly engineered completely automatic lubrication systems, which both feed and meter lubricant where it's needed, at a rate determined at design time. You fill a reservoir from a barrel at regular intervals or when the reservoir low level switch shuts the machine down, and otherwise ignore the system.

It smells like your machine was ordered without such a system (unlikely in proportion to its size and expense), or there was a failure in the lube system and it was improperly repaired, removed or hacked. You need to read the manuals, clean the machine and figure out what's really going on.



Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[ornerynorsk]

If it's essentially a way oil, it is not at all unreasonable to collect , filter, and re-use the oil.

It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all.