PROTECT Wireless: System Specifications

PROTECT Wireless: Wireless vibration monitoring system

There are two main hardware parts that make up PROTECT Wireless, a coordinator and one or more satellites. The coordinator relays the data to a computer for display, storage, further analysis and reporting. One coordinator may communicate and control multiple satellites in the wireless vibration monitoring system and have them provide data in real-time to users anywhere around the globe. Satellites are placed on or near the equipment they are monitoring and are directly wired to the sensors. After that – NO WIRES. The data is processed and initially analyzed by the satellite, then wirelessly broadcast at a 2.4 GHz 802.15.4 industrial standard frequency or other wireless options to the coordinator.

The wireless vibration monitoring system comes with numerous options from single to eight simultaneous channels of data collection. The multiplexer comes standard with eight channels but can accommodate over one hundred, while also accepting virtually any type of sensor.

PROTECT Wireless’ versatility offers solutions for nearly every remote vibration monitoring equipment situation and budget. Each system is completely upgradable and can be changed to a full scale system at any time.

Wireless Vibration Monitoring System Specifications

MULTIPLEXER (MUX)

Input Voltages: -30v to +30v DC, +/-10v AC

Coupling: DC to 100 KHz

Input Types: Voltage or Current (4-20mA) is selectable on each channel. Fully differential readings for 16 channels or pseudo-differential for 32 input channels. Accepts signals from virtually every vibration probes (including proximeter) and industrial sensors. A separate tachometer input is also provided. Input impedance is approximately 25K Ohms (Input impedance of tachometer is typically > 10Meg Ohm).

Routing Type: Any of the 32 single-ended or 16 differential input legs may be routed to any of the 8 differential output legs. Due to the simultaneous collection of outputs, relative phase of virtually any input may be correlated to another.

Input Terminations: Input connectors consist of four 2.5mm, 1×16, detachable screw terminal plugs accepting up to 14 gauge wire. ICP‚Ñ¢ power typically used for accelerometers is provided for all 32 input channels at 3.5 mA (selectable). This avoids power start-up delays for a maximum switching speed. ICP‚Ñ¢ and 4-20 inputs are jumper-selectable. In addition a separate 2 pin terminal is supplied for a separate digital tachometer input (tachometer may also be wired to individual channels).

Switching Characteristics: THD < 0.002% @ 20KHz. Differential Gain/Phase Error < 0.1%. Low all hostile crosstalk of-83 dB. Input voltage noise of 14nv/sqrt (Hz). Operating Temperature Range: Linear behavior approximately -20°C to +80°C (-4° to 176° F) DAQ SYSTEM Input Channels: Up to 8 simultaneously, true differential or pseudo-differential (user-selectable). Digital Resolution: 24 bits or -144 dB. Input impedance is 100K Ohms. Coupling: DC or AC 0.16 Hz to 40KHz. Supports ICP™, 4-20 mA as well as most voltage inputs interfacing to almost any industrial parameter transducer. All of this is user-selectable. Analog Full Scale, S/N Ratio: User selectable in excess of 350 digital steps from 200v down to 50 mV. S/N ratio for each range supports up to 111 dB for a collective S/N ratio up to 183 dB. Hardware Auto-scaling: Features channel independent hardware auto-scaling utilizing full scale voltages from 50mV up to 200v with more than 350 digital steps. Offers visual overload indicators Calibration: Card maintains NIST traceable flash resident constants for digital compensation. Values stored for all signal paths including DC & AC. Amplitude Resolution: 3.15 nV (.05v full scale @ 24 bits resolution theoretical) Noise Resolution: 141 nV (.05v full scale @ -111dB effective noise resolution) Auto-Continuity Check: Detects shorts or opens in ICP transducer cabling. Triggering/Phase: A separate trigger channel is provided which supplies full digital triggering capability. It supports a CMOS compatible pulse on rising or falling edge with Schmitt trigger. Both RPM and phase are provided from the selected Fmax down to virtually DC. Timeout capability provided. By supplying 1x amplitude and phase, the system fully supports balancing of up to 8 channels simultaneously. Input impedance (trigger only) typically > 1Meg Ohm.

Tachometer inspection: The tachometer signal may be routed into either channel 4 and/or 8 via user control. Either the pre-buffered (before Schmitt trigger) or post-buffered signal may be selected providing an excellent debugging tool when interfacing to tachometer signals of various types.

GENERAL PROCESSING

Sampling Rate: 8 channels up to 102.4 kHz (Fmax = 40 kHz) simultaneously.

Sample/Spectrum Sizes: 256 pts (100 lines) to 128K (51,200 lines).

Anti-Aliasing: Linear phase, multi-stage, low-ripple digital filter supplies in excess of 100 dB in stop band (equivalent to 10 orders). 2-pole out-of-band filter set at 40 kHz.

Frequency Range: 0.16 Hz (10 rpm) to 40kHz. Steps provide are 50, 100, 200, 500, 1K, 2K, 5K, 10K, 20K and 40KHz.

Weighting: 11 standard weightings include Hanning, Hamming, Flattop, Force, Exponential

Averaging: Up to 64K averages with numerous averaging types including summation, peak & exponential.

Units: Universal unit selection for probes and display both English and metric. Supports the majority of required units for conventional sensors. Vibration units include power spectral density (PSD). Full digital integration/differentiation capabilities provided (hardware integration requirement negated by 24-bit capability) permits seamless vibration unit conversion: Displacement, Velocity and Acceleration.

Power: Typical 400-480 mA @5v or 2.4 Watts maximum with multiplexer (32 channels), maximum power up to 1.8A @5v or 9 Watts. Low Power capabilities feature auto or user-selectable shutdown of non-essential subsystems for dramatically improved battery life.

Standard Enclosure: NEMA4, approximate dimensions 10” x 8” x 4” with 1 MUX in addition to 5.5” antenna.

Weight: 11.5 lbs (1 MUX card)

SATELLITE

Satellite Monitoring/Alarming: Each satellite in the wireless vibration monitoring system collects and evaluates data independently. This includes waveform, spectrum, and envelope analysis which enables the use of more sophisticated alarming techniques (other than just conventional overall alarms). These include true-peak, crest factor, K-Factor, frequency alarm band and change alarms including statistical to name a few. All of these processed summary levels culled from the raw data are relayed wirelessly to additional remote vibration monitoring equipment (a Coordinator system connected to a PC) with a unique time/date stamp for further analysis and trending.

Satellite On-board Storage: Each wireless vibration monitoring system satellite features an SD card permitting storage up to 330K waveform/spectra data sets. Data is typically stored in FIFO fashion for days or weeks. The data is readily retrievable via the Coordinator. This provides the user important pre-trigger waveform and spectrum information before an alarm or failure event. In addition, data can be stored on the Coordinator and/or PC for various scheduling tiers so that measurement point trends can be established quickly and conveniently, for remote motor vibration monitoring and additional continuous monitoring.

Scheduling: Raw data can be retrieved periodically via the Coordinator according to a variety of tiers including: Hourly, Daily, Weekly and Monthly for ease of data management and recall. Data gathered by the wireless vibration monitoring system is also stored per alarm event including change alarms.

Real Time: Full real time capability is provided so that a user may access any point or group of points (up to 8 simultaneous) at any time with this remote vibration monitoring equipment. This can be used for remote motor vibration monitoring and other applications. The user is provided with both waveform and spectra for each channel with full cursor and panel condition control.

SOFTWARE

In addition to the firmware operating on the Satellite and Coordinator subsystems, high level software is supplied to run on the Coordinator’ PC. This software is responsible for managing all data sent to and retrieved from the remote vibration monitoring equipment through the Coordinator subunit as well as trending, archiving, scheduling (periodic raw data retrieval), real time acquisition as well as setup. The Coordinator of the wireless vibration monitoring system is connected to the PC via a USB connection. It also supports full web access of the system by the user(s) from anywhere around the globe via PC and Smartphone. The hardware detection of the USB Coordinator system is plug and play and fully automated.

Navigation: Multilevel hierarchical portals to all machinery status, data and setup information. A highly intuitive graphical user interface ensures that all significant status info and data from the wireless vibration monitoring system is only click(s) away. Multiple sites may be managed in the same application for remote motor vibration monitoring and other continuous monitoring. All sites will feature a customizable picture template (set by user) to access the lower, more data specific levels. Access hotspots are configured so that by clicking on them, more specific information is displayed. This continues down to the point or transducer level where complete access to the trend, raw data, statistical, real time data as well as setup info is made available.

Site/Location: Top-level site and picture information is stored for summary and navigation purposes. Measurement positions can have their hotspot location customized. The hotspots change color to represent changes in status condition. Clicking on a hotspot provides access to more detailed information at lower levels.

Machine/Process: Wireless vibration monitoring system setup information will include machinery pictures and/or diagrams, location information, measurement point location as well as machinery parametric information.

Point Specific: Each collection point (mux terminal connection) is assigned a Satellite #, Mux Board ID as well as Mux Channel # (up to 32). Users can assign collection points to any number of route collection groupings (up to 8 simultaneous at any one time). Complete panel condition information can be set including coupling, hardware scaling or autoscaling, sampling rate and size, ICP, etc

Due to mux switching flexibility, input points can be routed to any desired DAQ channel (1 through 8). Intelligent alarms or SmartBands© are then assigned to the various points. These intelligent routes can then be downloaded to the appropriate Satellite system in the wireless vibration monitoring system, where it will be implemented in stand-alone fashion.

Alarms: Each individual collection point can be assigned alarms of various types (see Setup) for remote motor vibration monitoring and additional vibration monitoring applications. These can consist of overall levels, overalls computed over a specific frequency band (usually machinery parameter related), waveform characteristics such as true peak, crest factor, K factor, other more sophisticated derived values, various machinery or environmental parametric values, statistical information regarding the aforementioned or a logical combination of all the above. Various alarm levels criteria as well as their consequences (email or text alert, schedule data collection, etc) can be set for each of the SmartBands. The real power of the SmartBand is that sophisticated analyses can be developed by creating and combining ever more custom tailored SmartBands rather than custom programming an overly complex set of rules with endless possibilities. The alarms in the wireless vibration monitoring system are typically evaluated at the Satellite level. Anything significant gets promptly transmitted to the Coordinator PC. From there, they may be relayed via e-mail, text message as well as various visual indications and trend markers.

Trends: As data is collected by the remote vibration monitoring equipment, its summary information, i.e. SmartBand values are broadcast to the Coordinator and fed to the PC high-level software. Trends are constructed in the wireless vibration monitoring system by using this data. Trends include the simultaneous plotting of all desired SmartBands such as Overall, 1x running speed, 2x running speed, low order harmonics (1-10x), True Peak, etc each drawn with a unique color. Trends can be viewed so as to include all data from the 1st instant data collection started to the present or with various filtering options including: FIFO (a fixed length of data extending to the present, e.g. the last week), hourly, weekly, monthly or a sliding window (user adjustable start and stop times).

Scheduling: In addition to data being collected, processed and analyzed by the Satellite, the PC software has the ability to take over control of the Satellite and instruct it to acquire data. The software takes advantage of this feature to automatically collect data according to a pre-defined tier structure. The wireless vibration monitoring system scheduling tiers include Monthly, Weekly, Daily and Hourly. The frequency of data collected for each point for each tier is user adjustable. Scheduling allows the user to have periodic raw data along with its processed SmartBands at his/her fingertips.

Plots: Dual waveform and spectrum graphs supplied for each and every measurement point with up to 8 waveform/spectrums pairs displayed simultaneously. A unique space efficient dual-plot Thumbprint© is provided. It posts a thumbnail waveform or spectrum graph alongside the corresponding conventional waveform/spectrum plot (if conventional plot is spectrum, thumbnail is waveform and vice versa). Merely clicking on the thumbnail reverses the plots so that a waveform and corresponding spectrum for a point is always displayed. Full cursor support is provided along with pictorial zooming of any section of the graph (as easy as drawing a box) for enhanced inspection. Rapid unit conversion is also supported.

Reports: A full web-based reporting capability is provided to show Alarm Status, Trend Plots and/or Raw Data for user-selectable time periods (accessing part or all of the archived data) and user-selectable groupings. Export is provided in a variety of formats including HTML (for web reports), Excel and Text. A wide array of statistical data and statistical plots and histograms are also provided for this wireless vibration monitoring system.

Units: As with the Satellite firmware (see Satellite Storage/Processing/Alarming), full unit support is provided to include units for virtually any probe/sensor as well as integrated and differentiated unit types for vibration (displacement, velocity & acceleration). Cursor support is supplied with most if not all graphs with the facility to instantly change units via convenient panel selections.

Real Time: See Satellite Storage/Processing/Alarming

Wireless Vibration Monitoring System Communications

Coordinator-to-Satellite(s): 2.4GHz IEEE 802.15.4 up to 4 km range with extended antenna. 20dBm Transmit power, Receiver sensitivity -98dBm, TX current 110 mA, RX current 23 mA

Routers: For wireless communication amid a RF noisy environment or around radio opaque obstacles, insert one of our routers which will seamlessly pass on signals from our respective remote vibration monitoring equipment to the Coordinator system.

Enhanced Range Option: For particularly stubborn obstacles or for transmitting even longer distances, a 900 MHz router option is provided. Its more penetrating signal will not only pierce stubborn barriers but will transmit/receive for distances of up to 7 miles (line-of-sight). Some speed performance loss is to be expected.

PC to Coordinator: USB 2.0 @ 1MHzCompliant with FCC part 15 rules, IC Canada RSS 210e, ETSI ETS 300-328 and Japan ARIB STD-T66

Satellite Process Features: 32-bit RISC CPU up to 32 MIPs; 128 kB ROM, 128 kB RAM; 4 Mbit serial flash; Watchdog timer; real time clock; 4 power MOSFETs, separate USB interface chip, multiple LEDs (both on-board and external); generic MMI interface header supports keyboard and/or display, SD card; headers for optional accelerator processor and 8 MBit external Flash and 1MBit SRAM.

Temperature: -40C to +85°C