Background noise is an unfortunate feature of everyday life in virtually every home and work environment. Unnecessary increases in background noise at work can be irritating and distracting to workers – and at the extreme end of the scale, even damaging to health. For context, an increase of 10dBA equates to a doubling of perceived loudness. Light conversation or refrigerator hum might generate 50dBA of perceived noise, while a vacuum cleaner or traffic noise might generate 70dBA. Once background noise edges above this level, it can increase fatigue, cause irritation and impact attention, contributing to an uncomfortable and unpleasant environment. It can also reduce productivity and have an adverse effect on safety. For these reasons, it’s important to try to minimise background noise, whether in the office, factory, laboratory, store or home.
Compared to traditional metal and ball bearing counterparts, drylin tribopolymer bearings can help reduce noise in many industrial applications requiring linear motion, including pick and place machines, laboratory automation equipment, scanners and 3D printers. Comparative tests with a sound level meter demonstrate how the innate low friction qualities of the drylin material, and the principle of sliding rather than rolling, result in considerably lower noise performance – two to four times quieter than its traditional counterparts.
