Industrial machinery carries heavy loads, undergoes enormous strain, and plays a vital role in company operations. Downtime and failure accrue serious costs. At RPM, we create the highest quality industrial isolators. When vibration isolation and other isolating is essential for machine use and operation, you should understand the options in front of you.
Industrial isolators have been used for decades and are simple rubber and metal pieces wedged in and attached strategically to machines. These serve a small but important role in extending the life of a machine, allowing for daily operation and protecting operators.
When you shop online for industrial isolators, there are many options. RPM is not the least expensive and that is because there are cheap isolators being manufactured. These may save you some money at first but have catastrophic effects in the long run.
The Risk of a Cheap Isolator
Numerous countries outside the United States manufacture and sell industrial isolators. There is a lot of competition in this space and they often set a price point that gets the attention of OEMs and other buyers. This price point comes at a cost, though.
There is a huge risk in buying a cheap isolator. At first glance, the item may appear identical to a higher quality, higher cost part. But the differences will become clear once the item is in use.
The bond between metal and rubber is critical to the success of this part. For example, the bond in an industrial isolator should be stronger than the rubber or elastomer itself. If the bond breaks before the rubber, you have an inferior part.
The team at RPM has literally seen behind-the-scenes at factories that manufacture inferior parts. In these scenarios, there may be someone hand gluing pieces together. You can imagine the issues in the consistency of application. The bonding process should be much more sophisticated than that if you are going to achieve a reliable outcome.
Isolators: Bonding Process
There are several steps RPM takes when we manufacture rubber mounts and industrial isolators. Vibration isolators and other parts are essential to the proper function of a machine, as well as the safety of its operators. One failure could be catastrophic. With so much at stake, it’s vital that the right steps are taken to ensure integrity, consistency, and durability.
The bonding process for industrial isolators should follow these steps:
- The metal surface should be prepared, which includes degreasing and sandblasting. If this step is skipped (which it often is in the creation of cheaper parts), the bond will be less reliable.
- Application of adhesives. This should be done by a machine or with an automatic spray booth. Only with a closely monitored process that has no margin for human error can you achieve high-quality control and absolute consistency.
While neither of these steps is particularly complex, they are both essential. If skipped, they will undermine the reliability of parts and could lead to failure.
It may feel like this is a minimal risk, but the reality is, when an industrial isolator fails, valuable equipment is at stake. Here are two illustrations of RPM customers or former customers who experienced failures due to inferior industrial isolator parts.
Illustration: Part Failure
RPM had a previous customer who began using alternative parts. RPM was mounting fuel tanks on forestry equipment. The mount was a mushroom style mount. The fuel tanks were being mounted on four of these. Due to the position of the mount a lot of fuel leakage occurred, dripping onto the mount itself.
This customer switched to a competitor for cost. The product subbed in was not fuel resistant or comparable quality. Because of poor bonding, the inner metal sleeve became separated from the rubber. This bond failure caused the part to fail and ultimately exposed the elastomer to fuel, which in turn caused complete mount failure. This in turn caused the fuel tank to become dislodged and posed a significant safety issue. .
Illustration: Forklift Failure
This is a similar scenario in which engine packages were being mounted on industrial off highway equipment. Because of poor quality bonding, the metal inner members were sliding out of the mount and becoming dislodged. This caused damage to the engine and attached components, which was now rattling and shaking. This caused significant downtime for their customers - not to mention great expense to replace the mounts.
This customer returned to RPM after dealing with the hassle of consistently poor quality.
End-users are the ultimate victims when industrial isolators fail. Both an OEM’s reputation and revenue are at stake. It’s far better to make the right investment in a product that will last.
Quality Industrial Isolators From RPM
RPM is committed to excellence. We understand that shortcuts are available but we don’t take them. When it comes to the high-value machinery our industrial isolators support, we will provide the highest quality parts. It takes more time, knowledge, and equipment to get it right, but that’s part of our belief system.
In addition to industrial isolators, RPM manufactures a full catalogue of both standard and custom rubber parts. You can buy:
- Premade rubber parts
- Extruded rubber
- Custom rubber parts
- Molded rubber
- Rubber-metal bonding
- Vibration and noise control
Everything we manufacture is overseen by a team of qualified engineers and executed to perfection.
Go here to learn more.