If you attended our 2016 Tech Expo event, you probably saw the i-ALERT2 demonstration on a vibration table. Or maybe you've already read our "Why Maintenance Personnel Love the new i-ALERT2" blog post or watched our "i-ALERT2 Extra Features" video. Unless you've been hiding under a rock, you should know that the i-ALERT2 is an awesome tool for maintenance people to stay ahead of unplanned repairs!
We asked Dustin Wiethoff and Jeff Fishel from ITT Goulds Pumps to give us a 1-on-1 demonstration of the i-ALERT2 at Tech Expo. Watch the video below to get an closer look at this condition monitoring system and it's mobile app.
Transcript:
Today we're talking about our 2nd generation i-ALERT2, 24/7 condition monitor. This is a Bluetooth enabled device and we're able to use a Bluetooth equipped smartphone or tablet to tap in to the i-ALERT's memory. The real value in the i-ALERT2 is the fact that we're looking at data 24/7 and enabling the user to quickly and efficiently monitor large numbers of machines at the same time.
So what we're looking at here is the actual i-ALERT2 app. This is available on the iTunes app store and as well as Google Play for Android. The first screen that we're looking at here is going to be the scan screen or sync screen. We're looking at all i-ALERT2s that are within communication range and that range is anywhere from 30 to 100 feet, line of sight. So, we've got five i-ALERTs within communication range here.
The colored circle icon is giving us the current condition or current running status of the machine. Green just tells us everything is running smooth, good to go. You know the nice thing about that is if you have an operator or somebody go out and check and do a walk-thru of the plant to check all of the machines, they get green circles they can kind of just ignore those, they know the machine is running good.
The one on top there, that's what we've got on our i-frame cutaway and our vibration table here. So, the vibration table actually does vibrate and it’s got on the back there a dial with an adjustable frequency and amplitude.
So, that red "X" is telling us that we've got a vibration problem with this particular machine. Now if we want to go ahead and dive into that. We're going to take a closer look at the machine that we have an issue with that's in an alarm condition.
The i-ALERT2 is looking at the data continuously so you can see here the dashboard is giving us the real-time data in all three axis. It's a tri-axial accellerometer, temperature, it is tracking runtime for us and also gives us the battery life.
The battery life on the i-ALERT2 is three to five years, depending on usage. The reason the battery is not replaceable is the fact that we potted the back with epoxy to make it suitable for Class 1, Div 1 hazardous area classifications.
So every 5 minutes it collects a snapshot of the data, vibration and temperature, brings that back to the warning and alarm levels which are set either automatically by the i-ALERT2 after 25 hours of runtime, or the user can go in after the fact and adjust those. It's checking to see if there's a warning or alarm level condition.
If the temperature and vibration are below those levels, that's where you'll get the green status icon. If it’s warning level, the status icon would be yellow. And red for an alarm level condition. So you can see here in the radial axis, we've got a high level of vibration, 1.6 inches per second. So that's given us an alarm level condition.
If I want to go in and take a closer look at the trend, I would simply click on any one of these and now I can zoom out, zoom in. You can also press and hold and a cursor will pop up so you can identify the peaks and go in and take a closer look if you want to identify exactly when your vibration and temperature started to spike.
Once we get out past 30 days we'll take a look at the weekly averages of temperature and we can plot the vibration as well. If I want to look at the raw data, I can generate a CSV file with the date and timestamp of the readings that were actually collected. So, if we're not running in an alarm state the i-ALERT2 is going to trend the data once an hour and we save that data for 30 days.
As far as analytics are concerned, we do have the capability to pull FFTs, timewave forms, it will do this on alarm. Or it will also do it if you set up a manual request if you are in communication range. And if you have any previous, prior FFTs that were pulled, you can access those in here as well.
Equipment information, this is where you would go in and adjust your alarm and warnings. You can put in all the equipment details, change the tag number, if it's a Goulds pump you can put in a serial number and it'll allow you to access the parts list and all of the original pump information, the materials of construction, the size, the model, the pump curve, etc. There's some really useful features there.
The last thing I'm going to show you today is the report generator. So, real quickly and easily if a problem machine is identified on the field, the person who is collecting the data can generate a nice two page PDF report with their FFTs and all three directions, timewave forms, your most recent data on the trends for temperature and vibration. It’s got your runtime, information about who collected or generated the report, the machine, etc. Now from here you can go ahead and email that out to maintenance, reliability, the vibe group, whoever might need to know that there's an issue with that particular machine.
And we'll kind of circle back and go back to the scan screen where we started and that concludes our demo on the i-ALERT2 and that's it. Thanks.
So, do you have anything to add Jeff? Yeah, I was going to say this monitor is not just for pumps, it's not just for Goulds Pumps, you can put it on anybody’s pump as well as any other piece of rotating equipment. Fans, blowers, compressors, turbines. If it rotates, you can use this to monitor vibration.
If you missed the i-Alert2 at Tech Expo, you can still see it in person! Request a demonstration!