Battery-free vibration sensors
12/11/2021
Fluke Reliability has announced a battery-free wireless system for monitoring machine vibrations that can help to identify potential faults before breakdowns occur. The ‘set-and-forget’ Fluke 3562 Screening Vibration Sensor system can connect up to 1000 sensors to a single gateway and can operate continuously, even in hard-to-reach places.Fluke believes that the ability to monitor so many sensors will mean that machines that are not normally checked can now be brought into condition monitoring regimes.
The vibration sensors draw their power from the machine’s heat or from ambient light, using thermoelectric or photovoltaic energy harvesters. The sensors can screen vibration levels, temperature and humidity, as well as identifying the nine highest fast Fourier transform (FFT) peaks.
Depending on the local conditions, the sensors can be placed up to 1 km away from the gateway for line-of-sight applications or up to 250 m when there is no direct line of sight. The wireless gateways offer a choice of WiFi, Long-Term Evolution (LTE) or Ethernet communications, making the system adaptable to any facility. The battery-free technology reduces the need for upkeep, cutting maintenance bills.
When used with Fluke’s 3563 analysis vibration sensor for critical machines and live asset management software, the system offers a way of monitoring almost every asset in a plant. The vibration screening system enables maintenance teams to spot machine faults before catastrophic failures happen, avoiding costly downtime.
