Broadsens ultra low power wireless vibration sensors were installed and running in a large steel mill for almost a year. The working condition of the steel mill makes it difficult for maintenance personnel to enter. There is constant high temperature, lots of dusts and hot steams. Heavy machines run automatically days and nights. Strong vibration exists in all major production lines and the machines need to be checked regularly. The critical monitoring location of some heavy machines are extremely difficult to run wires. Therefore, Broadsens' ultra low power wireless vibration sensor and ultra low power temperature sensor are ideal for this applications. The wireless vibration sensors and wireless temperature sensors need to run years without battery replacement. Low power design is critical in such applications and Broadsens is the market leader in terms of battery efficiency. Broadsens' ultra-low power wireless vibration sensor is less than half the size of most wireless vibration sensors on the market, while last twice as long as most wireless vibration sensors. One innovative sampling mode of Broadsens wireless vibration sensor is the batch mode, which takes data in high sampling rate, then transfers the data wirelessly, then go back to data acquisition and transmission. During the continuous monitoring process, both high frequency and low frequency defects from the machinery can be detected easily. The power consumption in batch mode is less than 350uA in average, which makes Broadsens wireless vibration sensors easily the best in terms of power consumption in the wireless vibration monitoring industry.
The basic monitoring system consists of one GU200 wireless gateway and three SVT100-A wireless vibration sensors. The standard monitoring system consists of 9 SVT100-A wireless vibration sensors and 4 SVT100-T wireless temperature sensors.
From the following picture, one can see the tough working environment in which Broadsens ultra low power wireless vibration sensors are working. After months of running in the harsh environment, Broadsens' wireless vibration sensors are still working well. To be honest, the humidity especially the water steams indeed cause troubles for the sensors, although they are IP67 water proof. We had to modify the sensor enclosure to handle the high temperature and water steams coming out from the machines.
Vibration trend analysis functions are included in the gateway software (BroadVibra). The software is easy to use and can predict machine defects by looking at key vibration parameters. The following picture shows the vibration trend measured from the steel mill. From the picture, one can see clearly that the machine is going to have problem. With the help of Broadsens's wireless vibration monitoring system, the steel mill is able to improve efficiency and profits.
