Reliable and Corrosion-Resistant Stainless Steel Plugs & Sight Glasses
Elesa+Ganter continues to expand its selection of standard parts of A4 (316 grade) stainless steel – now including threaded plugs, magnetic plugs and robust oil sight glasses for hydraulics in an entirely new material.
At first glance, the threaded plugs offered by Elesa+Ganter, such as GN 742.5, appear to follow the established level of technology – except they are made of A4 (316 grade) stainless steel. The plugs are available in thread sizes from M14 to M33 and G¼ to G1. This A4 (316 grade) stainless steel element is intended for corrosive environments, such as offshore applications or situations with heavy exposure to salt or brine. The screws have an embedded seal of fluorine rubber that is secured against loss or overloading. To minimize errors, they also have icons lasered onto the front side that clearly indicate whether the opening is for filling or draining.
The magnetic plugs, GN 738.5, look quite similar, except they have an integrated bar magnet that extends into the fluid to reliably capture any iron particles that could otherwise damage gears, bearings or the like.
In a similar area of application, Elesa+Ganter introduces our new oil sight glass GN 7440. This element is a premium addition to the longstanding variants of aluminum, brass and plastic. Compared with these earlier material types, GN 7440 offers not only the corrosion resistance of A4 (316 grade) stainless steel but also another special new feature: The glass sight glass is inserted into the stainless steel body using a special thermal process. During cooling, the glass shrinks to create a hermetic and absolutely tight seal. The level of pretensioning makes it almost indestructible. This allows the oil sight glass to withstand very high pressures. Burst tests have shown that, depending on the temperature, the parts fail at pressures above 400 bar. Thanks to the special FPM seal, temperatures up to 180 °C are no problem; or with a copper seal, temperatures as high as 300 °C can be accommodated.
Another feature is notches are integrated into the chemically resistant glass to give a reliable indication of the current liquid level. Lastly, but not least, GN 7440 improves operational reliability as this sight glass is designed not to burst suddenly. Instead, it signals overloading with the formation of easily discernible small cracks. This design feature provides an operator with some time to replace the oil sight glass before it fails entirely. Elesa+Ganter offers the premium sight glass in standard sizes from M16 to M42 and G⅜ to G1¼. Other thread diameters are available on request. Naturally, the same applies to the threaded plugs GN 742.5 and GN 738.5.
More information on this Elesa+Ganter standard part can be found by searching our website for these elements and downloading a datasheet.