Customer Overview
A long-established UK clay brick manufacturer operates a high-volume production facility running close to continuously, six days a week. Roller-chain-driven conveyor systems move product through every stage of the works — from extrusion and wire cutting, through the drying chambers, to kiln setting, de-hacking, and final dispatch.
The plant environment is heavily contaminated with fine airborne clay dust and abrasive grit, with elevated temperatures around the drying and kiln zones — some of the most demanding operating conditions a power-transmission chain can be asked to survive. The maintenance team approached Orbic Engineering Solutions after a run of conveyor chain failures began driving up costs and disrupting production.
The Challenge
Repeated conveyor chain failures were causing unplanned stoppages and rising maintenance costs. The root cause was not the chain itself, but the interaction between conventional lubrication and the works environment:
- Conventionally lubricated chain in a dust-laden environment — applied oil and grease attracted fine clay dust, forming an abrasive grinding paste
- This paste drove rapid wear at the pin and bush interface, accelerating chain elongation
- Stretched chains rode high on the sprockets and jumped teeth, causing mistracking, jams, and ultimately breakage
- Manual re-lubrication was labour-intensive, awkward to access on guarded conveyor runs, and largely ineffective — lubricant was contaminated almost as soon as it was applied
- Elevated ambient temperatures near the drying and kiln zones degraded conventional lubricants further, shortening chain life
- Each failure meant an emergency line stoppage, lost production, and an out-of-hours callout
The pattern was self-reinforcing: the more the chains were lubricated to fight wear, the more abrasive dust they collected — a recurring and escalating cost to the business.
Orbic's Solution
Orbic Engineering Solutions surveyed the affected conveyor drives and specified Tsubaki Lambda lube-free chain as a direct replacement for the conventional lubricated chain. Lambda was the industry's first chain to use a special oil-impregnated sintered bush, launched in 1988. The bush holds lubricant internally and feeds it to the bearing area for the working life of the chain — so there is no external oil or grease for clay dust to cling to. The abrasive grinding paste that destroyed the previous chains simply cannot form, and the drive runs clean.
Key Features of Tsubaki Lambda Chain
- Oil-impregnated sintered bush — lubricates internally for the life of the chain, with no external grease to attract dust
- Eliminates the abrasive dust-and-grease paste that accelerates wear in dirty environments
- Patented Ring Coining process gives the connecting link 100% of the base chain's transmission capacity, removing the usual weak point
- 6th-generation bush impregnated as standard with NSF-H1 food-grade lubricant
- Rated for continuous operation up to 150°C — covering the warmer conveyor runs near the drying and kiln zones
- BS Lambda is fully interchangeable with standard BS roller chain — a straight-swap fit
- Long, predictable service life that removes manual lubrication from the maintenance schedule
Because BS Lambda is dimensionally interchangeable with standard BS roller chain, it was fitted as a direct replacement on the existing sprockets, with hardened-tooth sprockets recommended to match the chain's extended service life. No drive modifications were required.
As an authorised Tsubaki distributor, Orbic provided the chain selection, full technical data sheets, and on-site support to embed Lambda into the site's planned preventative maintenance programme.
Results
- Conveyor chain failures eliminated by removing the abrasive dust-and-grease wear mechanism
- Manual re-lubrication removed entirely from the maintenance schedule, freeing up labour
- No more abrasive paste build-up — the drives now run clean
- Chain service life significantly extended, lowering replacement frequency and cost
- Unplanned downtime and out-of-hours callouts reduced, protecting production output
- Lower total cost of ownership across the conveyor system
Why Orbic?
- Authorised Tsubaki distributor — access to the full Lambda lube-free chain range and technical data
- On-site survey of the affected conveyor drives to identify the true root cause of failure
- Correct chain selection for a high-dust, elevated-temperature environment
- Direct-fit specification using existing sprockets, with no costly drive modifications
- Application engineering expertise across power transmission and heavy-industry maintenance
- Ongoing technical support to embed the solution into planned preventative maintenance