Care and Air

Cleaning Air Bearings

Keep guideway and bearing surfaces clean of debris and excessive dust. Avoid contaminants with oil, coolant or other fluids.

Clean porous media and guide surfaces with 60 psi (0.41 MPa) air pressure applied. Clean using ONLY Isopropanol (Isopropyl Alcohol greater than 90% pure). Do not clean bearings or guide surfaces with ketones. Clean by applying alcohol to a clean, dry cloth and wiping guide surfaces thoroughly. After cleaning allow the alcohol to evaporate completely. Also allow guide surfaces to dry completely before passing bearings over the newly cleansed areas.

Compressed air specifications for use in air bearings

Compressed air used to supply an air bearing must be properly cleaned and dried.  Air bearing performance and useful lifetime greatly depends on the quality of the compressed air.  An efficient system ensures minimum pressure loss, removal of contaminants such us water, oil, dirt, rust, and other foreign materials.  Particles will not affect the performance or life of New Way® Porous Air Bearings, but oil and water will.  In order to ensure the  specified performance and useful lifetime of the bearings, it is recommended that the following minimum criteria be met:

ISO 8573.1 Quality Classes

Filtering and drying compressed air for air bearings

General-purpose filters are used to remove the bulk of particles before it gets downstream and damages the coalescing filter. The Coalescing filter is used to remove oil and liquid water, including all the particles that passed  through the general-purpose filter.  The desiccant dryer is used to remove the water vapor before it condenses.