Acoem’s Bearing Defender sensor is a true wireless 3-channel accelerometer. It can be used with a tablet or smartphone to detect common vibration problems quickly and easily on a machine-with no training or certification required.
It can be used standalone (with a smartphone or other device for the display), or in conjunction with Acoem’s more sophisticated vibration analysis tools – the SMC, RT-300, or Falcon.
It only takes a matter of seconds to determine the most common vibration faults in machinery, such as unbalance, misalignment, or bearing faults. It can also be used as a lubrication tool, to determine proper greasing of bearings.
So, let’s discuss how it can be deployed as a preventive maintenance tool.
Preventive Maintenance Tool
Let’s say you are doing a PM of a pump room, containing 20 pumps, all of which are running. Collecting standard vibration data on 20 pumps, using a single-axis sensor might take a couple of hours, depending on the type of analyzer you are using, and the distance between pumps.
Checking vibration measurements with a Bearing Defender should only take about one minute per pump. If none of these pumps are in alarm, the PM is completed in 20 or so minutes.
But maybe one pump is in alarm. You can run the diagnosis (which takes less than a minute) and get a good idea of the problem. Here, the drive end of the motor has exceeded the ISO specification for vibration. And the diagnosis indicates a misalignment or unbalance problem. The next logical step would be to schedule an alignment check of this pump or perform a more detailed vibration analysis.
Alignment Checks and Vibration Analysis
In this example, the pump was found to be misaligned, corrected, and rechecked – all in about 45 minutes.
Another example, is this motor has a bearing with a high Bearing Defect number, and you suspect a lack of lubrication.
You can use the Bearing Defender as a lubrication tool as well. Monitoring live data, you can grease the motor bearing. Once the Bearing Defect Number drops (typically below a rating of 6 – displayed on your smartphone), the lubricant has contacted the bearing and reduced the Bearing Defect Number.
These are just a couple of examples of how to deploy the Bearing Defender as a PM tool, which can be used by mechanics to perform a more thorough PM and make corrections-freeing up the vibration analyst to focus on more critical machines.
