Little Known Sources of Contamination Ingression

You are probably familiar with a lot of the different ways contaminants can find their way into your machinery. For example, one of the most common ways that contaminants enter your lubricant is through poor headspace management.

- Paul Farless

Having an open vent or a factory vent plug on the machine doesn't really do much for contaminant prevention. Yes, those vent plugs allow the machinery to "breathe," but who knows what type of harmful particles that machine is actually sucking in. Those vent plugs and J tubes might as well just be a wide-open port. Another common ingression point that we are all aware of is water. Water contamination can happen through poor headspace management, blown seals, improper seals or by utilizing a lubricant that isn't compatible with the seal. Water ingression can come from condensation, rain or even the industrial process that the machine is involved in; these are issues we know about. What I want to focus on, though, is uncommon ingression sources. What sources allow contaminants that we don't think about or aren't so obvious?

New Oil 

It starts with the reception of new lubricants. Each facility should implement and utilize a quality assurance/quality control procedure for receiving new lubricants. Is it the correct oil? Cross-contamination is still contamination; for example, if you mix two gear oils that are going into a worm gearbox, but one has EP additives, well, you can say bye-bye to the yellow metals in that gearbox.