STAUFF Filler Breathers

Compare its oil displacement figure with how fast oil actually leaves your reservoir. The SPB covers 1,000 l/min; the SMBB-47 covers 400 l/min. Undersize it and the tank either draws air past the seals or pulls a partial vacuum against the pump.

Pick it on where the machine lives, not on the oil. 10 µm foam is the standard, right for ordinary industrial surroundings. 40 µm suits clean environments or where air flow is the priority. 3 µm — glass-fibre on the SPB, filter paper on the SMBB — is for genuinely dusty and abrasive places.

The plastic SPB moves two and a half times the air of the metal SMBB. After that, the SPB is the one that can be pressurised and the only one that takes a dipstick; the SMBB-47 is smaller, is steel so it stands knocks better, and is the only one offered chrome-plated or epoxy-coated.

It stops returning oil splashing up into the breather from below. That matters because oil on the element blinds it — the air path closes up and the tank stops breathing properly, which is the failure nobody notices until seals start weeping.

Yes, but there is a rule: the dipstick must be at least 15 mm / 0.59 in shorter than the basket. Otherwise it fouls the bottom of the strainer and neither part works properly.

Only if the tank was built for it. Pressurisation (0.2, 0.35 or 0.7 bar on the SPB) cuts the ambient air drawn in — in a humid climate that mostly means less moisture condensing onto the oil. But it loads every seam, seal and sight glass on the reservoir.

The plastic SPB is rated −40 to +120 °C. For the metal SMBB the sealing is cork rather than NBR and STAUFF asks to be consulted on temperature.

The SPB 4 needs only the aperture — it clamps in with three clamping jaws. The SPB 5 needs a six-hole pattern on a 73 mm bolt circle around a minimum 63 mm aperture (similar to DIN 24557 part 2). The SMBB-47 needs three M5 holes on a 41 mm circle around a 28 mm aperture.

Because the SPB 5 screws are sheet metal screws that form their own thread, so the hole has to suit the material they are forming. STAUFF recommends 4.0 mm at 1.20 mm sheet, 4.1 mm at 2.00 mm, 4.3 mm at 4.00 mm and 4.4 mm at 5.00 mm.

Yes. The SPB 5 comes with six sheet metal screws (ISO 7049-St 4.8×16-C-H) and the SMBB-47 with three slotted pan head screws (ISO 1580 M5×12-5.8). Both can be substituted — M5 socket cap to ISO 4762 on the SPB, regular M5 bolts on the SMBB.

On a schedule rather than on symptoms — because the symptom of a blinded element is a tank that struggles to breathe, and by then it has already been drawing air past seals. The interval depends entirely on the environment.

Yes — STAUFF invites enquiries for alternative materials and micron ratings on both families, and alternative body materials on the SPB. Send the fluid and environment detail.

Our running items: SPB with a 10 µm foam element, anti-splash, no pressurisation, and the standard-finish SMBB-47 — held in our regional warehouses in Singapore and Malaysia, out within 24 hours. Pressurised versions, 3 µm elements and telescopic baskets are built to order.