Maintenance recommendation for ABE servo canning lines.
Below you will find some maintenance recommendations. Please refer to your manual to subsidize this info.
Rollers-Check monthly by spinning them by hand they should make roughly 2-5 revolutions. If they make more than that add one slow pump of the recommended grease using a 1 gram per pump grease gun. Then check after completing the next run to see if another pump is needed. Repeat until you get the roller to spin the correct amount of revolutions. If you grease them too quickly you will break the grease cap at the bottom of the roller. If you over grease it will cause “deadheading” or “skidders”
V-ring seals- visually check monthly to ensure the v-ring seals on the puck and chuck are seated properly and are in good condition. These are cheaper than replacing a bearing due to water damage so I like to throw on a fresh seal about every 250,000.
Lower bearing- I also check this monthly, it should spin freely with the pressure of one finger on top of it. You will feel the drag of the seal below the puck. Try to rock the puck side to side. There should be no rocking movement. If it does not free spin or it rocks it is time to replace it. Around 500,000 is a good mark but a lot of that depends on your cleaning procedures and other factors, it may last longer than or not make the 500,000 mark.
Chuck bearing- You can try and check this for play up and down and side to side but a lot of times it is hard to tell if these are going bad that way. The easiest way to tell is listening to it. Over time as that bearing goes out your main axis will get louder and louder. Typically needing replaced anywhere from 1-2 million cans again because of several factors these can fail early or last longer. You will really want to pay attention to the noise
Cylinders – mostly the can lift and nozzle cylinder I like to check by removing air pressure from the line and these should move up and down easily by hand. If they do not then they will need to be thoroughly cleaned possibly tore down for cleaning then lubricated or replaced. On these two cylinders in particular I like to wash them down with low pressure hot water to avoid spraying past any seals after each run. Then I like to lubricate the guide rods of the cylinder with a thin coat of pneumatic air tool oil or food grade mineral oil maybe weekly.
Nozzles balls- Open the nozzles and inspect for deep grooves and nucleation points around the top of the ball.
Fill tubes- Visually inspect. May not need replaced if they are clean and are not causing fill issues. If they are leaking at a fitting I typically trim them back 1/4” or so very square cut and reseat them
It’s also not a bad idea to keep a sensor or two and cables on hand as spares but I wouldn’t necessarily change them before failure.
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