Tip o' the day: how much grease does a compressor need?
True confession. We've been known to forget to maintain our compressor motor, too. It's inconveniently located at the back of the shop, and you know what they say about out of sight, out of mind. But compressors are real workhorses, and they deserve a pat and a carrot every once in a while. Or at least a regular greasing.
Are you giving your compressor enough grease? Here's a tip for figuring out how much grease is enough. (Of course if you want to take greasing to the next level, check out our guide to creating a preventive maintenance mindset at your plant!)
If you don't grease your compressor motor properly, hello, catastrophic failure.
First, go to the specs for your compressor and look up the grams of grease you need. (This is also an awesome time to look up the recommended greasing frequency.) Next, figure out how many pumps of grease it takes to reach the recommended amount. To do this, we go old school. We put a piece of paper on a scale, adjust the scale to compensate for the weight of the paper, and pump grease onto the paper up to the recommended number of grams. Then we write down how many pumps it took and store that information under that motor's entry in a database.
One last tip. Grease liquifies as it heats up in the greasing tube, allowing air into the tube. You'll need to charge the tube to expel the air before you start greasing. If you don't, you'll think your first couple of pumps of grease are doing something useful, when in fact they're only pushing air out of the grease tube.
Now go get greasy!
