Case Study: Angle Grinders

Whether you’re a professional contractor or a DIY master, angle grinders are a standard piece of equipment that help cut and polish surfaces. Like many power tools, commercial grinders operate at high speeds with significant amounts of applied pressure. If not addressed in the design stage, these two factors can lead to safety issues or premature product failure.

Challenges

To get ahead of these issues a prominent power tool manufacturer came to Nye in search of a cost-effective lubricant that would extend the life of their angle grinder by protecting gears in the gearbox from premature wear.

This customer had several operation requirements. First, the lubricant needed to operate in a wide temperature range. The angle grinder in question has a cutting/grinder wheel that turns at high speeds of 6,500 to 8,500 rotations per minute, which generates significant heat, but the grinder is also used in moderate to cold environments.

Secondly, the lubricant needed to provide protection against heavy loads. Gears within the angle grinder experience a great amount of force from routine operation. For example, start/stop operations and long-term operation of the tool exposes the gears to constant shock and sliding conditions which wear on the contact surfaces of the metal gear teeth.

The Nye Solution

To meet these requirements, we concluded that the gear train needed a grease with an extreme pressure additive and good base oil wetting of the gears. The primary challenge was offering a cost-effective product that, at the same time, met the manufacturers life cycle requirement. Ultimately, Nye presented the customer with two different greases to meet the specific needs of the two different angle grinder sizes being manufactured.

Rheolube® 380

Rheolube® 380 was chosen as the best solution for small angle grinders because it’s PAO/Ester base oil blend is more cost-effective than a full ester oil formulation while still providing the lubrication advantage that ester oils offer in metal on metal applications. Rheolube® 380 also has excellent wide temperature performance between -50 and 130°C

Rheolube® 380-G1

Rheolube® 380 had only average performance results in large angle grinders. To address this, Rheolube® 380-G1 was created for use in the large angle grinder models. It was realized that a softer grease that contained more of the PAO/Ester blend base oil proved the right combination to sufficiently extend the life of the gear train.

After the customer completed life testing for our grease, they decided it successfully extended the life of their product at an appropriate price point. While a lubricant is an added design cost, its addition to your product ultimately leads to long-term cost savings as fewer products fail and fewer users claim their warranties.

Need more information on lubricants for power tools? Click here to download the Design Engineers Guide to Selecting a Lubricant for Power Tool Gearing

Scott Munday- Regional Engineering Manager

Scott Munday has worked at Nye for the last 11 years. As an integral part of our sales team, Scott works with engineers in the Appliance and Power Tools market to find lubrication solutions that solve their design challenges. Scott holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from Gardner-Webb University. 

Click here to connect with Scott on LinkedIn.