Posted to News on 30th Apr 2008, 15:25
Efector Octavis cuts cost of bearing condition monitoring
The innovative Efector Octavis bearing condition monitor from IFM Electronic is now available as a master unit that can monitor up to four separate locations. Additionally, the new Efector Octavis VSE100 unit has eight input/output connections that can be freely configured. The I/Os can also be used as inputs, electronically trigger diagnosis (eg in a reference run of a machine tool spindle), collect switching states of other sensors and transmit them to operational data logging via the OPC standard. The integrated FIFO history memory can store 33,000 values with time stamp.
These new versions make predictive maintenance more cost effective.
The Octavis central unit can also be programmed via Ethernet. The vibration pickups, which can be up to 30m from the central diagnostic, are made in stainless steel with an IP69K rating for arduous environments.
Rolling element bearings are probably the commonest element to be found on the shop floor. As both a load-bearing and moving component, their condition determines the efficiency of the machines, yet until now it has been very costly to monitor their condition continuously. The IFM Electronic Efector Octavis recognises, displays and signals bearing condition.
Affordable sensors for condition monitoring mean that monitoring is no longer restricted to the most critical bearings and no extensive training is needed in vibration frequency analysis.
Efector Octavis continuously monitors the machine operating condition.
IFM Electronics' vibration monitor detects rolling element bearing failures and shaft imbalance conditions on critical plant equipment such as pumps, motors, mixers, compressors, fans and spindles. Octavis is permanently mounted on plant equipment to monitor continuously a machine's operating condition through vibration analysis. Octavis has the processing capability to analyse a vibration signature and predict failures in advance by sending an alarm output signal to a PLC or relay. This can optimise machine availability and plant uptime.
Simple set-up
Configuration software is used on set-up to input application parameters such as bearing types, shaft speed and output conditions via an RS232 cable. These parameters allow Octavis to monitor only critical damage frequencies in the vibration spectrum and ignore all external noise. One Efector Octavis monitor can detect up to five different rolling elements on a machine or 20 individual frequencies.
The alarm display provides early warning and critical alarms. Pushbutton programming includes a teach button with an integrated alarm display. The alarm display provides two switching outputs that indicate an early warning alarm and a critical alarm.
