At the wrap up of a recent Hawk/SMC class the discussion was around what rotating assets to collect vibration data on going forward. The conversation quickly turned to a few keys assets that had the ability to impact large percentages of the downstream processes. The area technicians said that even though the machine was very important and knowing its condition would be very valuable for planning, they could not access the machine once the covers were removed since rotating parts would be unprotected and be a safety risk.
One of the machines was down that day for maintenance so we took a field trip to see if we could offer a solution. Upon inspection of the asset a remedy was quickly found, permanently mounted accelerometers would work great. In this case a single accelerometer could be mounted at each of the collection points and connected to a multi-channel switch box.
(fan with typical hardwire set up)
These sensors can be mounted by either drilling and tapping to the housing or using an industrial adhesive with the cables tied out of the way or ran thought conduit to the switch box. This switch box allows the technician to connect the Hawk/SMC and gather data at all points and not have to interfere with operation or to expose their selves to a potential safety risk.
(Wireless Tri-Axial Eagle sensor on conveyor tail bearing)
These applications are just one of many we and our clients utilize for permanently mounted accelerometers to gather data on equipment that is either a safety risk or has limited access for a variety of reasons. Machines from cooling towers to air handlers to gearboxes can be monitored using this approach.
Not only can this approach be used with a single axis accelerometer it can also apply to tri-axial points, wireless (OneProd Eagle) and instead of being terminated into a switch box be ran to a continuous monitoring system (OneProd MVX).
