What's that white grease stuff?

[Keatah]

What's that white grease stuff? I have been using an unlabeled pack of that stuff for decades but am running out.

 

You normally see it on things like worm gears/rails for CD-ROM drives, or mouse wheel "bearings", or any place low-stress plastic parts move a lot.

 

It's like a lithium grease, but not sure of the base whether its petroleum-based or not. Because most petro products attack plastics and rubber.

[Keatah]

Never mind. Found this. And ebay has it for sale, generically, as DVD drive lubricant. Probably used in floppy drive head positioning worm gear also.

 

DOW CORNING MOLYKOTE EM-30L Full Synthetic Polyalphaolefin (PAO) Base Lubricating Grease w/PTFE

 

Developed Especially for Plastic Components. It is a high-performance white synthetic grease with solid lubricants for extreme pressure, for use with plastic/plastic, plastic/metal, plastic/rubber and rubber/metal combinations involving slow and medium-fast movements and medium to heavy loads. White Color. NLGI #1.

APPLICATIONS:
– Suitable for lubrication points with medium to heavy loads and low to medium speeds.
– Switches: Lubrication of plastics and electrical contact.
– Actuators: Lubrication at wide temperature and various materials.
– Micro Motors: Lubrication at wide temperature and various materials.

TEMPERATURE RANGE: From -49ºF to 302ºF (-45ºC to +150ºC)

SOLVES THESE LUBRICATION PROBLEMS:
– Plastic Gear Wheels in Enclosed Gears
– High wear and short life owing to high temperatures or heavy loads.
– Swelling, range shrinking, stress cracks, change in strength characteristics due to inadequate lubricant.

[+-^CrossBow^-]

I call it lithium grease and I too have a tube of it that I've had for years that I think I got from Radioshack back when they still had like actual stores you could go into and stuff.

 

[Keatah]

7 hours ago, -^CrossBow^- said:

I call it lithium grease and I too have a tube of it that I've had for years that I think I got from Radioshack back when they still had like actual stores you could go into and stuff.

 

Lithium grease comes in several types.. Question is what's the base/carrier? It compatible with plastics like ABS or Nylon? Coming from RS, most likely yes, because that's what consumers would be using it for - household things and hobby things. And that infers plastic. So the purchasing manager for products would have sought out something compatible with those materials.

 

Some Lithium grease I had started messing with the durability of basic plastic gears from drive door mechanisms and other moving plastic parts. Turns out the container didn't say much beyond "Lithium" and definitely no information on what the carrier was. So research is still in order.

 

Regarding online shopping. More and more a consumer is needing to know the details about the products they're buying. Too many items on the market. And online shopping presents ALL of them to you. You cannot count on an online retailer to weed out the bad stuff or wrong stuff for you, not like brick'n'mortar would.

 

I don't think consumers at large are fully aware of that. And that results in sub-standard items becoming readily available. Or someones simply the wrong items for the task at hand. To complicate matters not all online sellers give all the details of their items. It's like buying thermal pads, what's the transfer rate of the heat? Some tell you the specifications and some do not.

 

You want grease for electronics go to the electronics shop. Want it for your Semi? Go to the truck shop. Both will sell you Lithium grease. Two very different types of Lithium grease.

[+-^CrossBow^-]

My mistake in my wording. I just meant that on the tube I got from Radioshack and it is listed for electronics use it just states white lithium lubricating grease or something to that effect. But it did have the MG Chem logo or something to that effect on it and I know it is safe for plastics because I bought it years ago for the purpose of greasing rails on the cd mechs and I still use it for that purpose today. Also comes in handy for those older electro-mechanical hand helds like the Blip and others from Tomy bitd.