FIELD SERVICE WORK - MAINTENANCE, REPAIRS, PARTS
RGB Engineering can perform inspections, repairs, preventive maintenance, and emergency service work on all types of roll grinders, which also includes general troubleshooting and diagnostic investigations. Examples of jobs typical of the type of work that can be done are bed alignments & leveling (including laser alignments), bed and carriage scraping, hydrodynamic and hydrostatic spindle repairs, swingrest adjustments, headstock repairs, carriage traverse gearbox maintenance, etc. Bob Triantafillos is the senior field serviceman for RGB Engineering. In order to minimize costs, the normal arrangement is to utilize Bob as a technical advisor to supervise and direct the work of in-house mechanics or mill-wrights. However, if preferred, RGB can provide additional service personnel to perform the complete job.
An
example of this type of effort was the complete replacement and rewiring of the
carriage and wheelhead service carriers on a 1973 vintage Farrel roll grinder in
a major steel mill. This is a special "in-chock" grinder, the operation of
which is absolutely critical to maintain steel production in this mill.
Due to gradual deterioration of the old electrical conduit and wiring runs
through the service carriers, they had been experiencing intermittent control
problems and breakdowns, which required lengthy troubleshooting efforts with the
resultant loss of production time. A complete control upgrade was
considered, but rejected due to the high cost and extended down time that would
have ensued. Instead, they elected to contract RGB Engineering to replace
the existing service carriers, and completely rewire the machine from the main
floor junction box to the on-carriage termination points. As a further
incentive and maintenance upgrade, we provided a new electrical wiring diagram
of the complete machine, which consolidated a number of old drawings and
add-on schematics into one CAD document. In addition to the elect
rical
rewiring work, this planned downtime was used to schedule a simultaneous long
overdue recond
itioning
of the headstock, also supervised by RGB Engineering. The total machine
downtime was only three days for the main carriage service carrier replacement
(including the headstock repairs, left photo), and was accomplished through a
well planned and aggressive work schedule of the entire RGB team (shown in the
photo above right). References are available on request.
Although we will work on all types of roll grinders, due to our extensive experience with the Farrel product lines, this can be considered our "bread & butter". From both an engineering and service standpoint, there is a wealth of knowledge available to assist our customers with troubleshooting virtually any type of problem on a Farrel roll grinder. We can supply most Farrel parts to OEM specifications at very competitive pricing. Examples include traverse gears & nuts, spindles & bearings, restrictors, swingrest knife seats and links, ball screws, way covers, etc., plus a multitude of miscellaneous parts (manufactured or commercial) that are critical to the grinder's operation. One specific item worthy of mention is the reconditioning of spindles and bearings. Depending on what is best for the particular application, the damaged spindle can be reconditioned by chroming or sleeving; hydrostatic bearings can be sleeved with bronze liners, and restored to the original Farrel tolerances. RGB Engineering has also completely reconditioned the Farrel "Hi-Pro" spindle and eccentric infeed assembly, replacing the Moglice liners with bronze inserts. If preferred, we will work with the customer to provide the necessary engineering so that a replacement part or spare part can be machined at the customer's plant, or at a local machine shop, as a cost saving measure.
As an example of some of the used equipment available from RGB Engineering,
shown here is a set
of Farrel two wheel roll grinder wheelheads complete with hydrodynamic spindle
and bearing assemblies (spherical seat design). These are in stock ready
for immediate shipment in "as is" condition, or if preferred, RGB Engineering
can recondition and refurbish the wheelheads to meet a customer's requirements.
Also available is a new (not reconditioned) TWRG spindle.