Maintenance and downtime defeated by Chemineer’s Dry-Well Seal Mixers

Whilst most mixer/agitator gearboxes are sealed with lip-seals to retain oil, Chemineer’s Dry-Well Seal is immune to wear and will never need maintenance. With no moving parts, its dam-wall design holds oil securely in the gearbox.

“Maintenance costs are often underestimated, especially when they are unplanned,” says Chemineer’s Rob Thelwall.

“Lip-seals on mixers are adequate whilst equipment is new, but inevitably, the seal will wear, and over a few years it will need to be replaced. Also, if the leak is overlooked, the gearbox will run dry and fail without much warning. A planned refit of lip- seals will reduce this, but again, this means disruption, site work, possibly crane hire; all adding up to an awful lot of downtime, inconvenience and cost”.

Based on a 10-year service program for a site with just 12 mixers, Chemineer claim that units with Dry-Well-Seals will cost less than a total of £1,000 to maintain – compared to over £16,000 for mixers with standard lip-seal gearboxes*. And by preventing oil leaks, Chemineer’s Dry Well Seals also prevent contamination of the water supply.

Additional benefits include a steady gear load that reduces noise and increases efficiency, whilst the shaft connection is a rigid coupling and not a pull-through hollow shaft. And to further increase mechanical strength, the gearbox output shaft can be over sized.

* The number of services for the lip-seal option is based on a lip-seal life of 3 to 5 years. The Dry-Well option service is based on the probability of bearing failure as calculated from the L10 bearing life.