Hugh Boyanton, inventor of SGS™️ shaft grounding systems for eliminating electrically induced motor bearing failure, explains why insulated bearings can fail due to electrical current.
One way an insulated bearing can fail is as the motor heats up and cools down, bearing oil can be sucked along the insulated bearing coating, leaving a carbon track for high-frequency currents to travel. This is known as the skin effect. When this happens, the electrical current traveling along the carbon track can then discharge through the inner and outer bearing races, as well as the bearing balls, leading to electrically induced bearing failure.
SGS™️ shaft grounding systems establish and maintain a long-term path of least resistance that is better than the bearing, and there is no need for a costly insulated bearing that is prone to the above-mentioned problem, as well as other problems such as greasing, misalignment, and insulative coating failure.
Instead of an insulated bearing, an SGS™️ shaft grounding system can be used on both the non-drive and drive ends of the motor to protect the bearings from both circulating currents and capacitive coupling related to an AC drive.
