Oil Lubrication Pumps for CNC Machines

Most CNC and injection-moulding circuits run on a motor-driven pump (the TZ, HL and MTA-150 types) because a motor can hold a timed dosing schedule across a whole shift without an operator touching it. A hand-lever pump like the NKHY/PH needs no electrical supply at all: it earns its place on a single lubrication point, as a backup for a motor-driven circuit, or on machinery with no power run to the lube station in the first place.

The trade-off is consistency. A motor-driven pump delivers the same dose on the same schedule every time; a hand pump delivers a dose exactly when someone pulls the lever, which is fine for one bearing checked on a walk-round and impractical for fifteen points on a production machine.

The TZ Type is the pump most CNC and injection-moulding circuits are built around: an alloy-steel gear pump rated at 110–260 ml/min at 1.5 MPa (roughly 15 kgf/cm²), with a 2 L or 4 L reservoir and a level switch fitted as standard. The HL Type covers the same flow band (110–260 ml/min at 15 kgf/cm²) and is specified where a circuit carries more lubrication points than a single TZ output comfortably feeds, without changing the metering distributors downstream.

The MTA-150 sits below both: a compact thin-oil pump for small and medium machines that would otherwise be oversized by a full TZ. It carries the same standard level switch and can take an optional microcomputer control and buzzer alarm, but the pump itself is sized against a lower point count rather than against peak flow.

The TZ Type is available as a plain timer, a dual-timer, or the NK-3 digital variant, plus single- or three-phase motor options: the control decides how the on/off cycle is set and how easily it can be changed later, not how much oil moves per cycle. The MTA-150 offers a comparable step up: standard level-switch operation, or an optional microcomputer for free-form time setting with a buzzer alarm carrying both NO and NC outputs. A pressure switch is optional on the TZ and available to order on the MTA-150, for circuits where a machine PLC needs to see line pressure rather than just reservoir level.

Everything above meters oil in doses, feeding a distributor that splits each dose across several points: total-loss lubrication, where the oil is used once and not returned. The BM Series Cycloidal Pump works differently: it delivers a continuous, near pulsation-free flow of 1.2–7.5 L/min at up to 5.0 kgf/cm², sized by frame and speed rather than by dose. That makes it a circulating-lubrication pump (gearbox oil baths and similar continuous-flow duties) rather than a fit for a distributor-fed, point-by-point circuit. Choosing between a BM pump and a TZ/HL/MTA-150 pump is really a question of which lubrication architecture the machine uses, not which pump is "better."

A metering pump on its own only pushes oil into a line. Splitting that flow across multiple points accurately is the distributor's job. The TZ Type is specified to pair with 35 Type volumetric distributors, RH3 Type inspecting volume distributors, and TCJ/TCZ resist-type distributors; see the distributors page for how those three metering architectures differ and which one suits a given point count and monitoring requirement.