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Should a dedicated oil to turntables to be used for bearing or a motor oil is more than enough?


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Hi guys, 

 

Just curious what oil/lubricant/grease should be used for a bearing plate. 
Could be a motor engine oil used for this purpose, or it is better to have a dedicated ones for our industry? 
 

Cheers, 

Art

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A search on the internet should find lots of info.     The type of oil can be specific to a turntable design, but in general, motor oil is not a good choice.  

 

Motor oil is usually multigrade and contains all sorts of additives.  This bad.   Light multi=purpose or sewing machine oil is a bit to thin.   I use a monograde oil sold for air compressors at about SAE 20 or 30.  Quite cheap.    Synthetic is better than mineral oil if you can find some.  I am just using mineral oil as sold at Tradetools for about $10 a litre bottle.

 

 

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It might also depend somewhat on the price and quality of both the table and the oil.

I wouldn't be putting cheap stuff in a table that just cost me thousands. It might be OK but it might affect things negatively and be false economy, especially considering the minimal amount used.

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9 minutes ago, GregWormald said:

I wouldn't be putting cheap stuff in a table that just cost me thousands.

 

I don't use the compressor oil because it is cheap.  I use it because it is the best thing for the types of bearings in my main tables.   I did put a rider in my reply saying that some tables require specific oils though.

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12 hours ago, stevoz said:

I use Penrite 10w40 Fully Synthetic.....seems to work well.B|

Why use a multi grade on a turntable bearing that never gets hot when there are perfectly good mono grade machine oils that dont have additives that attract water from the air like car oil and dont have detergents that keep crud that will wear the bearing suspended (turntable bearings dont have a filter like a car). Compressor oil has good ant wear additives non of the bad stuff that car engine oil has. I have a pic somewhere of a bearing that had car engine oil in it which had absorbed so much water it was a white brown mess the brown was rust and the bearing spindle was stuffed due to pitting. In a car engine emulsifying agents are good as it allows water to mix with the oil which boils off when engine gets hot. In a turntable bearing the water build up and up as a turntable bearing is not an engine. There is a very good reason I do not put car engine oil on my lathe bed as I dont want it to rust, same reason I would not use in on my turntable bearing.

Chris

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The question that needs to be asked is "Is it a bearing that requires lubrication in conventional sense that the manufacturer provides a lubrication point and a recommendation to use a lubricant as such?"

 

Some bearings require lubrication but conventional coating lubricants just don't work. These bearings are made from a porous material and require the lubricant to be absorbed or infused into the bearing in a vacuum environment.  Once the process is complete the bearing can be reinstalled provided it wasn't too far gone to begin with.  With use the bearing is self-lubricating until it needs re-servicing.

 

If in doubt, consult the service manual and / or owner's handbook.  The manufacturer generally knows best.

 

Cheers,

Alan R.

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7 minutes ago, Monkeyboi said:

The question that needs to be asked is "Is it a bearing that requires lubrication in conventional sense that the manufacturer provides a lubrication point and a recommendation to use a lubricant as such?"

 

Some bearings require lubrication but conventional coating lubricants just don't work. These bearings are made from a porous material and require the lubricant to be absorbed or infused into the bearing in a vacuum environment.  Once the process is complete the bearing can be reinstalled provided it wasn't too far gone to begin with.  With use the bearing is self-lubricating until it needs re-servicing.

 

If in doubt, consult the service manual and / or owner's handbook.  The manufacturer generally knows best.

 

Cheers,

Alan R.

Most not all but most bearing use similar oils of similar weights most specify some sort of machine oil around the iso 68 weight give or take, there are odd exceptions like I said. Now you are talking about sintered bronze bearing yes they need loading up in a specific way when initially installed but they can be oiled normally at intervals after that which is a good idea as older turntables will have used mineral oil which will have long ago turned to varnish and many of the pores in the sintered bronze will be blocked anyway. Reoiling with a good quality synthetic machine oil of the correct weight for the turntable is fine for most turntables.

Chris

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7 hours ago, cafe latte said:

Why use a multi grade on a turntable bearing that never gets hot when there are perfectly good mono grade machine oils that dont have additives that attract water from the air like car oil and dont have detergents that keep crud that will wear the bearing suspended (turntable bearings dont have a filter like a car). Compressor oil has good ant wear additives non of the bad stuff that car engine oil has. I have a pic somewhere of a bearing that had car engine oil in it which had absorbed so much water it was a white brown mess the brown was rust and the bearing spindle was stuffed due to pitting. In a car engine emulsifying agents are good as it allows water to mix with the oil which boils off when engine gets hot. In a turntable bearing the water build up and up as a turntable bearing is not an engine. There is a very good reason I do not put car engine oil on my lathe bed as I dont want it to rust, same reason I would not use in on my turntable bearing.

Chris

 

Because I don't live in Queensland where there is moisture.....I live in Victoria where there is no moisture!:PSeriously though, the air in Vic is traditionally dry, I have always used this oil on my current TT and have never noticed the problems you speak of.  Speed is always spot on, I just checked the bearing and there is no 'white stuff' or rust, it looks perfectly clean and spins beautifully. In fact, I just reoiled it with the Penrite.B|:thumb:

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9 minutes ago, stevoz said:

 

Because I don't live in Queensland where there is moisture.....I live in Victoria where there is no moisture!:PSeriously though, the air in Vic is traditionally dry, I have always used this oil on my current TT and have never noticed the problems you speak of.  Speed is always spot on, I just checked the bearing and there is no 'white stuff' or rust, it looks perfectly clean and spins beautifully. In fact, I just reoiled it with the Penrite.B|:thumb:

It is still not ideal though due to detergents. Get yourself some compressor oil it is made for the job.

Chris

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Slghtly off subject. My Merrill Williams 101.2 Turntable has a bearing well that is approx 0.6 mm larger in diameter

than the platter spindle! The platter leans at an angle, (a bit like a well-tempered TT with the belt removed) until you

fill the well with the supplied Very viscous oil. You have to add the right amount of oil and leave the platter spinning for a while. Then there is no play in the platter and absolutely no rumble through my speakers. The platter spindle

is held in place by a column of oil and only the bottom tip of the spindle actually makes contact with a small plastic (PTFE) thrust plate. Bizarre but seems to work very well. I rang, the very helpful George Merrill and he confirmed that

this was correct. So in this Instance, the correct oil is critical. Maybe other TTs also have specific requirements?

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On 03/12/2020 at 10:03 AM, ArtCor said:

Hi guys, 

 

Just curious what oil/lubricant/grease should be used for a bearing plate. 
Could be a motor engine oil used for this purpose, or it is better to have a dedicated ones for our industry? 
 

Cheers, 

Art

 

What turntable are we talking about? 

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For consideration of spindle lubricant, you'd need to know the running clearance.
If, for instance, the clearance is 0.001", then a thinner oil would be needed than for one which was operating with a 0.005" clearance.

 

Or, to put it another way, it might be argued that the most viscous oil you can get away with is perhaps best.
This assumes there's a uniform distribution of the bearing load along the length of the spindle and the motor has enough horsepower to overcome the drag associated with thicker lubricants.
Then there's hydrodynamic lubrication theory but perhaps there's some platter speed stability benefit associated with a little drag.

 

It's probably the same as a car - most wear occurs when starting and stopping the engine and I'm not sure how much hydrodynamic lubrication occurs with a spindle turning at only 33.3 RPM. It might need an oil pump.

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5 hours ago, Dustin said:

It's probably the same as a car - most wear occurs when starting and stopping the engine and I'm not sure how much hydrodynamic lubrication occurs with a spindle turning at only 33.3 RPM.

 

The biggest difference is the temperature changes that occur in a car and not in a turntable.  Hence the need for multigrade oil in a car, but not in a turntable.  

 

5 hours ago, Dustin said:

It might need an oil pump.

 

Some turntables have a pump system.  One of mine has a groove in the shaft. The bottom of the bearing acts as an oil reservoir.  If you fill it too full, it will pump the oil all the way up and out of the bearing.

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On 03/12/2020 at 10:03 AM, ArtCor said:

Hi guys, 

 

Just curious what oil/lubricant/grease should be used for a bearing plate. 
Could be a motor engine oil used for this purpose, or it is better to have a dedicated ones for our industry? 
 

Cheers, 

Art

Bearing clearance will dictate what oil is used. If your TT has a very close tolerance bearing fit it needs a lighter oil than if the bearing clearance is larger.

 

Some TT manufacturers spec SAE30 and others like Technics spec a light hydraulic oil. You need to find this info for your TT.

 

TT bearings are hydrodynamic, meaning there is a very thin layer of oil separating the spindle and sleeve. If you use too heavy an oil the oil will not film batween the spindle and sleeve. The spindle will contact the sleeve causing more bearing noise and wear.

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17 minutes ago, Warren Jones said:

Bearing clearance will dictate what oil is used. If your TT has a very close tolerance bearing fit it needs a lighter oil than if the bearing clearance is larger.

 

Some TT manufacturers spec SAE30 and others like Technics spec a light hydraulic oil. You need to find this info for your TT.

 

TT bearings are hydrodynamic, meaning there is a very thin layer of oil separating the spindle and sleeve. If you use too heavy an oil the oil will not film batween the spindle and sleeve. The spindle will contact the sleeve causing more bearing noise and wear.

Not true Technics specify an oil which is a machine oil, actually a turbine oil and it is iso 68 which is around sae 30. Kab sells the correct oil in little bottles or you can just buy a synthetic compressor oil which is iso 68. 

Chris

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1 hour ago, cafe latte said:

Not true Technics specify an oil which is a machine oil, actually a turbine oil and it is iso 68 which is around sae 30. Kab sells the correct oil in little bottles or you can just buy a synthetic compressor oil which is iso 68. 

Chris

Incorrect

 

ISO oils are specified at 40C and SAE at 100C

 

SAE30 is  100 cSt at 40C which makes it equivalent to ISO 100

 

Edited by Warren Jones
edit fat finger
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8 hours ago, aussievintage said:

Some turntables have a pump system.  One of mine has a groove in the shaft. The bottom of the bearing acts as an oil reservoir.  If you fill it too full, it will pump the oil all the way up and out of the bearing.

 

A spiral groove?
Spiral grooves are a common passive engineering method of transporting lubricant along a shaft.
With a close fitting, slow moving TT spindle, I expect that's a good idea. As I say, the loads are likely not evenly distributed along a vertical spindle so a spiral groove should help.

 

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11 hours ago, Warren Jones said:

I knew I had this somewhere

 

This is from Mobil

Viscosity-Chart.jpg

iso 68 is considered sae 25 or 30 this is fact, both systems use different parameters, but it is close , it is not iso 100 for sure. I spent a lot of time researching this and I was in contact with n oil expert in Western Aus. iso 68 is around sae 25-30

Chris

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On 04/12/2020 at 7:40 PM, RCAJack said:

 

What turntable are we talking about? 

It is a Maestro from TriangleArt. I have just received an email from manufacturer suggesting to use Synthetic High-Performance grease CV-2 from Red Line, alternatively Mobile 1 oils, I guess they refer to full synthetic. 

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