A low-cost vibration analyser is proving particularly good at picking up bearing damage and helping to identify other faults
A small, hand-held device can now determine from machine vibrations whether a bearing is damaged and in need of replacement, or whether the vibration comes from some other source, such as an out-of-balance load.
Similar smart instruments, incorporating expert knowledge, could be of equal benefit in many other kinds of predictive maintenance and environmental monitoring tasks.
“The problem with predictive maintenance is that the tools are particularly expensive and difficult to use,” says Dr Russell Sion, managing director of C-Cubed, “so we saw the opportunity for a low-cost vibration analysis meter.”
Building on the development reported in Eureka’s March 2000 edition, concerning instrumented washers that pick up car engine detonations – and the development of a general sensor interface to work with pocket PCs and PDAs, revealed in October 2001 – the company has now brought out a ruggedised Pocket PC customised and dedicated to vibration analysis.
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