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Haas spindle motor grease zerks / motor bearing lubrication type

evotechcorp

Plastic
Joined
Sep 16, 2019
Doing an isochronal inspection on my 2012 Haas mills and found grease zerks on the spindle drive motor, machines have quite a few hours on them and i'm sure would love a shot of fresh grease but there's no mention of lubing the motor bearings in any of the manuals I can find so I have no clue whats in there. My electric motor experience says white lithium but I'm not going to guess... I probably should pull the motor and check the bearings anyway but I really don't want to, lol... Anyone have any insight on this?
 
Nope, but you beat me to the same question. Have a VFOE that I just bought and going thru all of the pre-start-up repair and maintenance on it. Need a new spindle motor fan. No telling how long it has been out of commission at previous owner. Or how hot the motor got. Noticed those zerk fittings myself last night. Was just about to post a question about it. Next will apply some new sound deadener inside the spindle cover.
 
Verify lube type, amount, and time interval. I was taught not to overlubricate motor bearings as it can cause premature failure.
 
Im headed to a Haas machine demo on the 20th of this month, I'll grill the techs while i'm there and report back here with an answer....
 
Nope, but you beat me to the same question. Have a VFOE that I just bought and going thru all of the pre-start-up repair and maintenance on it. Need a new spindle motor fan. No telling how long it has been out of commission at previous owner. Or how hot the motor got. Noticed those zerk fittings myself last night. Was just about to post a question about it. Next will apply some new sound deadener inside the spindle cover.

Let me know what you use for sound deadener, was going to replace it on both my new machines as well. Was thinking about dynamat industrial because it also absorbs and cancels out vibration and harmonics. Dynamat.com | Dynamat Sound Damping | Thermal Solutions
 
ok to answer your questions. Haas will say no dont grease it. but the truth is I have greased mine . and happy I did. I rebuilt the gearbox on my 96 vf3 about a year ago. while I had everything apart I did some inspection of all of the parts including the motor. I will say that my spindle in my vf3 was extremely noisy. I always thought it was the gearbox , until I took it apart. after the rebuild ( I had yet to grease the motor) I was testing it and noticed it was as loud as it was before. then I had remembered I had forgotten to grease th motor. so I had given it about 2 pumps each. and let me tell you it was unbelievable how all that noise went away ! fast forward to about 6 months ago. my vf2 ss was making terrible noises in the spindle . thought at first it was the spider coupling. after checking the spindle it was by itself smooth as silk. and the coupling was good. ended up I had the tear motor bearing fail and welded itself to the motor shaft. unfortunately the new motors don't have any grease fittings. so I had to pull the motor and replace the bearings. hopefully this helps answer some of your questions.
 
ok to answer your questions. Haas will say no dont grease it. but the truth is I have greased mine . and happy I did. I rebuilt the gearbox on my 96 vf3 about a year ago. while I had everything apart I did some inspection of all of the parts including the motor. I will say that my spindle in my vf3 was extremely noisy. I always thought it was the gearbox , until I took it apart. after the rebuild ( I had yet to grease the motor) I was testing it and noticed it was as loud as it was before. then I had remembered I had forgotten to grease th motor. so I had given it about 2 pumps each. and let me tell you it was unbelievable how all that noise went away ! fast forward to about 6 months ago. my vf2 ss was making terrible noises in the spindle . thought at first it was the spider coupling. after checking the spindle it was by itself smooth as silk. and the coupling was good. ended up I had the tear motor bearing fail and welded itself to the motor shaft. unfortunately the new motors don't have any grease fittings. so I had to pull the motor and replace the bearings. hopefully this helps answer some of your questions.


But what grease do you recommend?

...and yes. That does help a lot!

Thanks.
-TH
 
Let me know what you use for sound deadener, was going to replace it on both my new machines as well. Was thinking about dynamat industrial because it also absorbs and cancels out vibration and harmonics. Dynamat.com | Dynamat Sound Damping | Thermal Solutions


Going to try Noico 315 absorber pads but only because we got a good deal on the exact amount that we needed.

Saw a video of a guy that used noico 80mil anti vibration pads on his Fadal spindle cover and measured a 4x noise reduction. (half tempted to put those on outside of back wall of the machines enclosure)

I will check back in and let you know my findings on the spindle deadner. Although my spindle don't have a gearbox and isn't very noisy to begin with.
 
I used Kluber Isoflex NBU 15 . its expensive. but it's what I had in hand when I had rebuilt a few Chiron spindles. you might very well find a substitute that costs a lot less.
 
But what grease do you recommend?

...and yes. That does help a lot!

Thanks.
-TH

I confirmed with Lincoln Electrics that my Lincoln / Haas motor uses mineral based green lithium complex grease easily identifiable by its green translucent color. The grease passages in the castings lube from the outsides of the bearings so theres little to no chance of grease getting into the motor, they stated grease would push out around the shafts because its the path of least resistance. As with greasing anything clean up extra grease from the outside because its a magnet to suck contaminates into the bearing and cause premature failure. Thats the info I received!
 
I confirmed with Lincoln Electrics that my Lincoln / Haas motor uses mineral based green lithium complex grease easily identifiable by its green translucent color. The grease passages in the castings lube from the outsides of the bearings so theres little to no chance of grease getting into the motor, they stated grease would push out around the shafts because its the path of least resistance. As with greasing anything clean up extra grease from the outside because its a magnet to suck contaminates into the bearing and cause premature failure. Thats the info I received!


That is a little confusing. Are you saying there is no use trying to grease it because it won't get to the bearings anyway? Just oozes out the shaft ends?

?
-TH
 
The correct grease is, "Mobil Polyrex™ EM electric motor bearing grease", according to my research.

Mobil Polyrex™ EM

I did not lube mine. I found this thread because I was curious about the zerk fitting.
 








 
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