Hi,

I work for a company which is in the business of Sales & Marketing of vibration sensors, DAQs, and related accessories and items - bot Wireless as well as accelerometers and related items.

We have recently decided to look into possibility of diversifying into implementation of online vibration monitoring and analysis projects where we will be offering end-to-end solutions.

However, before we actually dive in, I would like to know more about online vibration analysis software - their features, capabilities, limitations etc. especially hardware independent vibration analysis software - a software which can work with multiple different types of accelerometers and DAQs from different brands, makes, and configurations (both wired/wireless).

I am not sure whether a software like this exists or not. I would therefore, greatly appreciate it if any pointers/directions could be provided. As of now, I am actually not looking for a full-fledged software but only for something which can be tried first - current aim is to perform POC testing, so even a school/college lab level application will work. Once our tests confirm that the application software is good enough and it can be used with any type of wireless/wired accelerometer and DAQs, than we may go for full feature application to be used in our implementations.

Many Thanks,
Manoj

 

The company I worked for sold the US brand Banner Engineering wireless industrial I/O radios. Worked great for 4-20mA/RTD/T-C and discretes. About 7-8 years into the wireless program, Banner introduced a wireless vibration monitor, to help sell the radios. But there was no software to go along with it. We, as distributors declined to sell it, because the margin from the sale could never support the inevitable calls and emails with questions about how to interpret the vibration trends. Definitely not our idea of a user friendly distributor product (that minimizes our support costs).

My (very) limited exposure to Bentley-Nevada revealed that there were/are several (3?) 'certified' levels of expertise in vibration analysis, but Banner had no software for even for the lowest/entry level, other than, "Look for changes over time". Uh-huh, sure. The blind leading the blind. I can't speak for other distributors, just our case.

To me, the software is more important than the hardware, because the software is what tells me there's a problem, a developing problem or no problem. Raw signals are useless, just piles of datapoints. As a user who wants to wear yet another hat labeled "vibration analyst", go through the learning curve and bear the consequences of a mis-interpretation?

I doubt your one-size-fits-all software package exists, if for no other reason than you would have heard about it already if you have any presence in the market at all.

 

I concur with David_2 - there is no specific online hardware independent
vibration analysis software.
The hardware suppliers such as Rockwell and Bentley-Nevada have designs
where the resulting data is intended to be handled locally.

The nearest I could point to is HMI or small SCADA systems with
web capability, then trend data to suit. Local hardware configurations
would provide alarms.