Foodsafe Lubricant for Ballscrews

Butter.

What's the EP number on that one?

Salted or sweet?

I assume salted would tend to corrode the equipment. But the salt also acts as a preservative to keep the butter fresh longer than sweet. So there's a maintenance cost tradeoff to consider.

I hear that some businesses are getting good results from synthetic butter.

Good answer. Our company distributes vegetable oils, essential oils and oleoresins. Vegetable oils and butters are ingredients typically in foods and bodycare products. They are not suited for lubricating machinery. They can certainly change state and become rancid in a heated environment. Staying with an industrial grade and food safe lubricant is the best advice for the manufacturer. Lubriplate is a good suggestion.

You can try coconut oil for this application. It is good lubricant.

Suresh Sharma.

From my experience Shell make a range of food safe lubricants. Your local lubrication rep is a good place to start.

A huge range of food safe lubricants (sprays, gels etc) can sourced in Australia from a Sydney-Canberra based manufacturing firm called Field Performance - TRANZ Lubricants. I know you can purchase them by the can, cartridge or bulk packs.

They are also practicing tribophysicists so can see your problem through to a satisfactory conclusion of you have other outside factors such as heat, cold, pressure, or electrical transmission/insulation issues with your gear.

Chances are good you will find exactly what you need as they sell their products to the big distributors around the world but are small enough to still know what doing a good job is all about, and will make to order for your problem if nothing else will do.