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Balcrank History
Founded in 1906, Balcrank is one of the oldest manufacturers of automotive lubrication equipment in North America. Originally focused on designing and manufacturing ball and crank mechanisms, the company has gone on to become a major player in the lubrication market for heavy industries, including marine, mining, railroad and municipalities.
Balcrank Products
“We manufacture products for fluid distribution and dispensing,” explains Mike Smith, National Sales and Marketing Director for Balcrank. “Those products include pumps, hose reels, dispense handles and waste oil drains.”
Balcrank’s other product ranges are just as comprehensive, such as hose reels ranging from light-duty economy units up to robust extended-volume reels for heavy industries. Other product offerings include control handles, fully assembled tank packages, and fluid inventory control systems.
Through its distribution partnership with Carroll Technologies Group, Balcrank is introducing its products to a broad customer base in heavy industries, from mining and construction to oil & gas.
“When it comes to doing business within Carroll Engineering, our prime products are our grease-related products,” Smith explains. “We have everything to dispense grease, all the way from a 25-35lb pail through to a 400lb drum. We have standard drum pumps, as well as specific mechanisms that allow you to quickly load barrels of grease and pumps that will apply pressure to allow the grease to travel significant distances.”
“Something that was very interesting to us at Carroll Technologies was Balcrank’s fluid inventory control systems, because we’ve had requests for these along with the other monitoring systems that we offer for collision avoidance,” adds Allen Haywood, VP at Carroll Engineering.
Balcrank’s fluid inventory systems include its NEX•U•® Fluid Monitoring System, which is a central processing unit that controls the system communications and houses the U•track software. It is used alongside a range of pulse monitors, real-time inventory control devices, and secure keypads.
Why Balcrank?
“Our prices are generally better than our competitors, and we still offer products of an equal or greater quality,” Smith explains. “What makes us stand out is that we can supply much better. All our products are either made in our US manufacturing plant in Weaverville, North Carolina, or our Spain facility, so we have very good control over what we manufacture. We have a very large engineering group, so we can design our own products and build them from the ground up.
“We also have a program called system design, where we can look at any system that our customer might have to assess certain properties. For instance, the weight of the oil that is being pumped, the ambient air temperature, whether there’s going to be extreme high and low temperatures, the gallons per minute required, and the overall distance that product is being pumped. We can then help our distributors design a system using the proper pump and the correct diameter tubing for the distance they need to travel. This ensures that the fluid will get to the farthest point, and they still get the flow rate that they require.”
Balcrank Distributors
Carroll Technologies Group supplies safety equipment to more than 800 mines across North America, making it the ideal distribution partner to understand the specific needs of heavy-duty pumping applications. Fluid distribution and dispensing equipment is not a one-size-fits-all solution, so Carroll Technologies and Balcrank can work closely with customers to provide a customized system tailored to their site and application.