Imagine having Gandalf protect your industrial motors. It would be a formidable force to reckon with. According to Freddie Coertze, the ifm moneo Data Science Toolbox has a wizard that can provide just that type of protection. It can predict motor issues using advanced vibration analysis (AVA).
“A unique aspect of moneo is that this wizard can help users determine the vibration limits of their motor. It can predict failure well in advance, so there is enough time to act,” said Coertze, the National IoT Business Development Manager for ifm Australia. “It’s a great way for an industrial business of any size to start implementing a predictive maintenance plan. There’s none of the fuss and complexity often associated with this process. Because you’re starting just with the motor monitoring.”
Unlike other condition monitoring solutions, moneo has been designed for ease of use. It is a self-service IIoT platform with the hardware, software and smarts in one package. The AVA wizard is a tool that comes with moneo. It can be used as a simple way to start monitoring and protecting motors.
“It’s straightforward to set up. The wizard tool will talk you through the steps so you can do everything yourself without needing an IT or analytics expert,” said Coertze. “It’s a matter of connecting your sensor, then dragging and dropping that into the moneo dashboard. Once you select the motor configuration, moneo’s inbuilt AI tool will create baselines for you. It knows what the acceptable limits of motor vibration will be for that configuration.”
Identifying issues to protect your motors
Users can then start seeing the vibration levels of their motor installation on the dashboard. The set limits suggested by moneo appear as red and yellow dots to indicate if the motor is running outside its determined limits.
“If vibration levels exceed the yellow, you are notified that your motor needs attention. If it reaches red, it goes into alarm,” said Coertze. “It’s the difference between having a warning that something is about to fail and having early notification predicting a failure later on. Essentially, this wizard gives you time to fix motor issues before they become bigger problems. As we say, you need to predict to protect, and this wizard helps you do that.”
Importantly, moneo has been designed to keep it simple for users and expand as requirements change.
“You can extend on this form of motor protection. Just add a device that provides a more intensive vibration and into other aspects of predictive maintenance as well,” said Coertze. “But if we think about businesses just wanting a starting point, this is a great way to begin. You might have an asset where if it breaks down due to a motor failure, the whole production of a facility might come to a halt. So having this tool will let you know in advance if the motor has issues, such as if it’s misaligned or out of specification, and you can save it before any event like that occurs.”
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