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Broadsens recently released firmware upgrade for the popular wireless vibration sensor SVT100-A. The ultra-low power wireless vibration sensor SVT100-A was released in Fall 2020. SVT100-A was based on Broadsens's wireless sensors developed in 2016. The first generation wireless sensors include wireless temperature sensors, wireless sound sensors, wireless vibration sensor, wireless motion sensor, etc. However, the power consumption was very high at the time due to the WIFI protocol. It took Broadsens five years to get the power to the best in the industry. Although Broadsens released wireless vibration sensor SVT200-A as an upgrade in August 2021, we continue providing supports for previous sensors. This new firmware release brings the power consumption of SVT100-A to almost the same level as the SVT200-A. The latest firmware version for SVT100-A is 2.1. Customers who are using SVT100-A are strongly encouraged to upgrade their firmware to the latest version to enjoy the industrial leading wireless vibration sensor features. The new upgrade also allows SVT100-A to have adjustable sample points in single DAQ mode. The adjustable sample points range from 2,048 to 16,384 based on user's selection at the BroadVibra software control interface. (The previous version of firmware for SVT100-A only allows fixed 8,192 points).

We have an exciting news to share: Broadsens's vibration analysis team is working to add high-pass, lowpass and bandpass filters to the popular vibration analysis software BroadVibra. BroadVibra software controls Broadsens's ultra-low power wireless vibration sensors, show sensor data in real time, query sensor data up to 1-year from the wireless gateway, and perform vibration analysis with various tools such as FFT analysis and auto vibration trend analysis.

The filters can help remove unwanted data and noises from the vibration/acceleration signals. The following is a preliminary design of the filter function.

The following are some reference parameters for machine condition monitoring and predictive maintenance. The filters for pipe leak detection are also provided. Note: The parameters will be updated with the research progress of our engineering team in applications.

High-Pass filters

200Hz: middle and high leak frequency for water, oil
500Hz: Low speed machinery having <125hz. Bearing & gearing problems
1000Hz: Intermediate speed machinery (<2000 rpm) with gear mesh <300hz
2000Hz: Medium speed machinery (<4000rpm) with gear mesh <600hz
5000Hz: High speed machinery

Lowpass filters:

40Hz: Machine structure balance
40Hz: Oil, water pipeline ultra-low frequency leakage

Bandpass filters:

60Hz-90Hz: Oil, water pipeline low-frequency leakage
20Hz–150Hz: Felt problems on paper machines
50Hz–300Hz: Certain structural resonance excitation, modulation of gear mesh in low speed machinery
100Hz–600Hz: Gear mesh modulation in intermediate speed machinery.
500Hz–1kHz: Gear mesh modulation

We are excited to have some major upgrades to the vibration analysis and control software BroadVibra. The upgrades includes both the vibration analysis functions and the wireless vibration sensor control, and vibration data visualization. The details are as follows:

• Added the following vibration analysis parameters for machine predictive maintenance. From the trend of the curves, a user can predict the condition of machines. The new parameters include: Kurtosis, Crest factor and skewness. Kurtosis reflects the characteristic of random variable distribution, and the kurtosis value of bearing vibration signal generally varies between 3 and 45. Compared with RMS, kurtosis is sensitive to early fault. Crest factor is defined as the ratio of peak value and RMS. The threshold value can be used to judge physical condition of bearing. Skewness is the characteristic parameter to attribute asymmetry degree of probability density curve relative to the shock and vibration.

• Optimized wireless vibration sensor control. Now the DAQ adjustment is at the same panel as the live chart. One can observe the live charts conveniently and also adjust the wireless vibration sensor settings easily. Live acceleration and temperature data display is one major advantage of Broadsens's wireless systems. Most other wireless IOT systems does not allow real-time data visualization ability.
• Adjusted the layout of the chart display. The new vibration and temperature data visualization has 30% more viewing area than before.
• Give users more flexibility to add and even delete sensors.
• Wireless vibration sensor selection for Vibration FFT analysis now uses sensor name, instead of ids. This is more convenient for users to make the correct selection.

More exciting improvements are on the way.

Broadsens will be releasing a new ultra-low power wireless vibration sensor SVT200-A. SVT200-A will replace the popular wireless vibration sensor SVT100-A. SVT200-A will start shipping from 9/12/2021. Compared to SVT100-A, the following major three improvements are made:

• Idle current reduced from 4-6uA to 2.1 uA. This makes SVT200-A the new industrial leader in terms of low power consumption. Ultra-low power is critical for wireless vibration monitoring applications.
• Wireless range is boosted at least 25%. SVT200-A can reach 300 meters in open space (line of sight). This new improvement is also critical.
• Working temperature range is boosted to a whopping -55 to 85 degree C. This makes SVT200-A the toughest wireless vibration sensor in the industry.

Again, SVT200-A supports all the data acquisition modes of SVT100-A: real time mode, batch mode and single DAQ mode. All three modes can be synchronized for the sensors in the same group again. With all the new improvements, SVT200-A will become the new best wireless vibration sensor for predictive maintenance.

SVT200-A comes with two options of metal bases: aluminum alloy 6061 and stainless steel. We offer the aluminum alloy base to reduce the weight of the sensor to about 50 g only. The ultra compact and ultra light SVT200-A will be ideal to minimize the external factors to affect the vibration analysis. The stainless steel version still weighs 100g.

We have been fine-tuning the exciting wireless vibration sensor SVT200-V in the past week. One new feature that we added is the acceleration RMS measurement in unit g. We realized that it is important to have this value besides the relative vibration speed calculation in unit m/s. Broadsens's vibration monitoring software BroadVibra will also add the auto zeroing offset feature, which allows to remove the acceleration offset when the wireless vibration sensor SVT200-V is mounted on a structure. The added measurement, calculation and data transmission could consume slightly higher power compared to the original relative vibration speed and temperature measurement. So we went back and did extensive experiments to make sure that the power consumption is still comparable to the previous level.

The software layout is adjusted to draw the acceleration RMS value in real time. Showing vibration (acceleration) data in real time is a major feature of our software. Updated real-time vibration charts are shown below.

Finally, a big step that we made is the measurement interval. We decided to make the default measurement interval to 1 second. The 1 second interval gives a real-time measurement experience and is crucial. To achieve this, lots of work is done to make sure that the small battery inside the wireless vibration sensor SVT200-V still last long time. Our goal is to provide the best wireless vibration sensor in the industry and SVT200-V makes it possible. Here is the data about how long the battery can last with 1s measurement interval (please note that the working temperature is assumed to be room temperature with +/- 10 degree variation. Calculated with 1100mAh battery capacity estimate):

• Constant vibration environment with acceleration change exceeding 0.25g all the time:  1 year and half
• Intermittent vibration environment with acceleration change  exceeding 0.25g 50% a day: 3 years
• Regular factory with machines running 8 hours a day: 4 years

The improvement of measurement interval and longer battery life for a regular factory are thanks to the dynamic adjustment of the overall vibration transmission: When there is no vibration detected, SVT200-V sends out the vibration measurements every 10 s. When there is vibration detected, SVT200-V sends out the measurement every 1 s. All the calculation and adjustment are done inside the wireless vibration sensor SVT200-V.

Attention: SVT200-V needs to be used with Broadsens's wireless gateway to enjoy the ultra-low power feature provided by Broadsens.