EARTHRINGS vs Carbon Brushes

	Micro Fiber brushes	Spring Loaded Carbon Block Brush
Wear	Virtually no friction or wear, lasts for service life of equipment (no friction to shaft).	Wears out due to friction
Shaft Grounding Effectiveness	Continuous discharge – no degradation over time.	Decreases after only a few weeks due to coating buildup on shaft. Must be cleaned to restore contact.
Surface Rate	Surface rate and RPM do not effect performance or wear, tested at 20,000 RPM and high surface rate applications of 180 f/s.	Higher surface rate/RPM results in faster wear and replacements, RPM limitation, less effective at higher RPM.
Create Dust	No measurable dust collected or wear observed (less than 0.025mm ) in 10,000 hours.	Carbon block wear on shaft creates dust particles based on surface rate of shaft.
Life	Lasts for service life of equipment – nothing to wear out, estimated life is greater than 200,000 hours.	Depends on material but may last for as little as 3 -5 months.
Replacement	Never needs to be replaced.	Replacement needed frequently (requires equipment shutdown).
Motor/equipment shutdown lost production	Never	Periodic for maintenance or replacement needed.
Periodic Shaft maintenance	Never	Periodic maintenance needed to clean/remove oxidation/coatings/contamination shaft.
Brush maintenance	Never	Periodic maintenance needed to clean/remove coatings/contamination brush contact surface.
Works if oil/grease gets on shaft	Yes	No
High frequency VFD currents	Micro fiber is optimized for high frequency current discharges produced by high speed VFD dv/dt pulse width modulation (PWM) switching.	Not as effective for high frequencies.
Complex to install	Simple screw -on brackets – mounts direct to end bell. Self centers for easy alignment, slim design minimizes shaft length requirement.	Complex bracket installation and alignment, may require machining for bracket installation, may require over 1″ of usable shaft length.
Performance Guarantee	Bearings on motors up to 400 kw guaranteed not to fail from bearing fluting caused by electrical bearing discharges. (L10 Guarantee)	None
Load on shaft	No load on shaft – micro fibers “lightly” touch shaft surface	Spring load on shaft, causes drag and decreases motor efficiency
Effective conductive surface contact	Three to four times greater, hundreds of thousands of micro fibers surround shaft	Only 15 -30% contact on slipping surface.

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