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Posts Tagged ‘condition monitoring’
Does Your Maintenance Program Need Maintenance?
Does your maintenance program need some… well, maintenance? A “good” maintenance program involves keeping equipment in peak condition and mitigating failure. Getting to this result takes the proper balance of strategies, people, and resources. Between changes in management, the revolving door of employees, and unreliable contractors, it can be relatively easy for an organization’s program…
Read MoreGood Vibration Data vs Bad Vibration Data
It is important in vibration analysis to know whether the vibration data you are looking at is actually “good data”. Below is a review of the causes and symptoms of junk data, as well as some tips to improve data quality overall in the future. Reasons for Bad Data A poor electrical connection is…
Read MoreThe 5 Questions No Maintenance Supervisor Should Ask
I’ve never been a maintenance supervisor, but I have worked for several. And when a machine has had problems, most maintenance supervisors have 5 questions: What’s wrong with it? How bad is it? How much longer can we run it? What do we have to do to fix it? What can we do to prevent…
Read MorePerspective
I don’t know about you, but in my nearly 45 years in industrial maintenance, there have been times when I felt stumped when trying to solve a problem. Sometimes you can just walk away and the solution comes to you while performing another task. Other times, a colleague or coworker may come along and have…
Read MoreVibration Analysis Routes – Setup Considerations
There are numerous items to be considered when performing an initial inspection while setting up vibration analysis routes. All things from safety considerations to machine information, smells, and sounds need to be observed and documented. Safety The first and most important thing to consider when inspecting for a route is safety. Here are some…
Read MoreImplementing a Hybrid Model to Monitor Machinery Vibration
Monitoring machinery vibration can use many tools and models, including a hybrid model. Some of the monitoring tools available today include: Portable vibration data collectors and analyzers. Short-term surveillance vibration data collectors and analyzers (which can be installed temporarily). Embedded sensors mounted to equipment which can monitor vibration, temperatures, and other inputs. Permanently mounted accelerometers…
Read MoreA Handy Guide to Balancing Rotating Machinery
Balancing rotating machinery is mostly math, with a bit of common sense and experience thrown in. The math is constant, so here are some tips to help with the common sense and experience part. Preparing to balance Inspect before you balance I once balanced a fan by pulling an air filter out of the fan…
Read MoreUsing a Strobe Light to Verify RPM
Knowing the correct rotational speed is critical when performing machinery diagnostics. A strobe light can be an excellent tool for determining speed. Look for a unique mark such as a keyway, piece of tape, etc. to use as a reference. You will adjust the flash rate of the strobe light until you only see one…
Read MoreWhat is Machine Misalignment Costing You?
We often hear from clients that machine misalignment is a costly and inconvenient problem. But, just how costly is it? It is far more expensive than most people realize, especially when you take today’s supply chain concerns into account. Between downtime, equipment damages, overtime for repairs, and supply chain interruptions, a fairly minor amount of misalignment…
Read MoreHow Vibration is Measured (Cont.): Vibration Level Charts, ISO Values, and More
In Part 1 of How Vibration is Measured, we discussed how equipment vibration is measured. An accelerometer mounted to a machine bearing vibrates. This vibration in the accelerometer produces a voltage. The amount of movement of the accelerometer determines the amount of voltage, and the severity. The frequency of the voltage (how many times per…
Read MoreAdding Process Points to a Data Collection Route
Sometimes other data can influence analysis when running your regular routes. This data can range from discharge pressure on pump to slide valve position on a chiller or maybe just bearing temperature just to name a few. With the Falcon and Nest this type of data can be collected and even trended in the Nest.…
Read MoreGenerating Global and Special Reports in the NEST
Once you have moved your data back into the Nest, after a Route has been collected, you may want to provide a report or reports to different parts of an organization. The Nest has several ways of generating a couple different types of custom reports. For your discussion we will focus on a global report…
Read MoreHow to Reorder Points in the NEST
Setting up routes is a very easy process in the ONEPROD NEST software and allows you to move machines into any order to allow for expeditious data collection. However, sometimes points need to be rearranged within the machine. Take the gearbox below for example. Due to its size you don’t want to have to walk…
Read MoreProper RPM Set Up with the OneProd Falcon
One key bit of data required when collecting data or analyzing it is accurately pinpointing the RPM. When we set up schematics in the Machine Set Up module we tell the software what the RPM is here. When setting up a machine in the Nest you can choose either fixed speed, variable speed with keyboard,…
Read MorePrecision Maintenance in Data Centers
The emergence of portable computers, the internet, and the ubiquity of portable smart devices has given rise to a new type of industry–the data center. A data center is simply a building used to house computer servers. While these servers may be used for many different types of data storage, their requirements for in-house…
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