First build so I'm leaning things the hard way. I purchased some inexpensive Chinese SBR-16 round rail and pillow blocks. Unfortunately there are no grease fittings on the blocks. Looking at the Thomson bearing site their round rail blocks have an optional 1/8-28 grease fitting. Can I, or has anyone added a grease fitting to a round rail pillow block? How do I go about it? Any do's and don't s?
With non-recirculating bearings, I'd at least consider the feasibility of either a dry lube or a very light oil. Failing that, I'd probably go for an ISO68 way oil over a grease, which only really seems to have the filler in to help it stick to gear trains and the like. These can all be brushed directly on the rail while you run a program written to help you do it if you like, no rules against direct lube as far as I'm aware. That said, all you're trying to do is get oil to the bearings. I'd just empty it, drill'n'tap it, screw the things right in and stick the balls back in. Nothing special should be required. If there are no felt wipers on the ends, that'd probably help, or even rubber gaskets to help hold some of the oil in as a partial bath and reduce oiling frequency. Should be pretty straightforward. Just go easy pumping it in, work out an optimum amount whilst allowing for initial leakage... Bearings don't like running in TOO much oil (or grease). Maybe even do oil cups instead of grease nipples.
Yes all the block have wipers. So I'm concerned simply lubing the rail would not get enough oil into the blocks. This being my first build I don't know how frequent I need to lube SBR round rail and bearings. But I assume it will become part of the regular maintenance, so I'm trying to make it as easy as possible.
If they're felt wipers, way oil will get in ok (though an initial charge directly into the bearings wouldn't hurt) from the rail itself, just gotta run it fast enough to avoid run-off. Rubber seals, it won't, you'll have to directly inject it. At a guess, and probably slightly depending on loading, I'd assume at least every 8 hours of machine time, probably every 2-4 hours for the first 2-3 times, as it beds in. That tends to be the way on box ways, ball screws (the two I actually already have and use), and I believe also on linear rail (which I've looked at a lot but haven't yet pulled the trigger on). I haven't looked specifically at round shaft rail enough to know for sure, though. Basically, if the machine is running on and off most of the day, oil it at the end of each day. If you're running it hard all day every day, I'd oil it during morning warmup and again at lunch. If that's the case, automated or semi-automated oiling and oil lines would be good to look into.
