March 12, 2020 | Company News
Neal Systems Inc. has officially announced its acquisition of ES2, an equipment, service and systems provider, out of Pipersville, PA. The addition will be a significant benefit to both Neal System’s and ES2‘s customers by increasing our total field service capabilities throughout the region. The immediate benefit of integration will be the increased availability of field service technicians, the addition of internal support staff for our service team, and the expansion of our expertise across new and various industries.
We look forward to working together to better support our customers through increased flexibility, faster speed of response, new service contract options and access to the most cutting-edge hardware and software technologies in the industry.
February 21, 2020 | Product News
John Lamp, mechanical engineer and vibration monitoring expert, conducted a feasibility study on replacing obsolete proximity vibration monitoring components in high-speed air compressors. This study showed how the Metrix digital proximity sensor, MX2034, can replace a component on products like the Bentley Nevada Proximity Probe System without replacing the entire system.
Choosing to use a Metrix DPS will lower overall costs by only replacing the necessary components and allows customers to ensure accuracy due to Metrix being a digital technology.
Find the full report HERE!
February 13, 2020 | Company News
Over the past year, Neal Systems has been researching, testing, integrating and deploying combination vibration monitoring systems using both wired and wireless technology. There are benefits and drawbacks of both wired and wireless, but when paired together the accuracy and reliability of your system becomes unmatched.
Wireless vs Wired
The Benefits of Wired Vibration Monitoring
Reliability: The 4-20mA current loop has set the standard for industrial signal reliability. The Neal Systems enhanced solutions are unrivalled in reliability due to its consistent signal accuracy over the typical life span of a loop-powered field instrument.
Continuous Data: The wired solutions provided by Neal Systems record vibration data continuously, ensuring that any sudden changes in the overall vibration levels are captured and recorded. This allows for the most accurate understanding of your equipment function.
The Drawbacks of Wired Vibration Monitoring
Installed Cost: The installation of a new wired sensors on standard wired vibration monitoring usually requires new conduit and expanded I/O on the PLC.
Convenience: Wired data has to be viewed locally, either at the indicator on the instrument or from the control room using SCADA software.
Diagnostic Power: Wired solutions usually use 4-20mA outputs, which simplify the data down to overall levels and loose the frequency information.
The Benefits of Wireless Vibration Monitoring
Installed Cost: Wireless solutions are particularly cost effective.
Convenience: With Neal Systems cloud-based wireless solutions, any device with an internet connection and log-in credentials can access trends and alarms.
Diagnostic Power: Wireless solutions offer more advanced data processing and diagnostic capabilities. This is due to the computational “heavy lifting” that is done by remote servers.
The Drawbacks of Wireless Vibration Monitoring
Reliability: Even the most robust wireless systems are subject to downtime. Whether it’s a neighboring plant blasting electromagnetic noise on your frequency, a box truck conveniently parked next to your base station, or a new construction in the path of your signal.
Non-Continuous Data: Modern data speeds are fast, but not fast enough to continuously transmit the high frequency data sampling rates needed for most vibration applications. To deal with this challenge, most wireless vibration solutions record and transmit small windows of vibration data in regular intervals. The recording window is usually less than 1 sec and the interval between recording windows on the Neal Systems choice solution is 5 minutes.
How do these two vibration monitoring solutions fit together?
In our experience, the best monitoring systems use a combination of both wireless and wired components. The drawback of costs of a wired solution can be minimized with loop-powered Neal Systems enhanced solutions: the Metrix ST5484E and the Metrix MX2034. These options reduce installation and I/O requirements, which in turn lowers costs. These specific styles of sensors also have a long history of providing reliable and accurate alarms for increasing or decreasing vibration.
The wired solutions, Metrix ST5484E and the Metrix MX2034, when paired with the wireless Samsara HM11 and IG21, allow for in-depth diagnostics on regular intervals or in the event of an alarm. Also, by pairing a wireless option with the wired solution you are able to quickly and remotely able to access information on your system.
Choosing to go with the combination wired and wireless solution, will increase efficiency and reliability, which lowers cost and allows for preventative maintenance to occur before equipment malfunctions result in system failure.
Check out this graphic for a quick glance of each solution!
February 6, 2020 | Product News
The Samsara HM11, machine health monitor, magnetically mounts to a machine case, which allows for the continuous tracking of key health parameters for pumps, fans, motors, and compressors. The HM11 records 0.5 seconds of X,Y & Z accelerometer vibration data every 5 minutes, while simultaneously recording temperature every 4 seconds. The included sensors monitor vibration in mm/s or ips with a frequency range of of 10Hz to 1 kHz and a measurement range of +/- 16g. The sampling rate for vibration monitoring is 1666 Hz with an accuracy of +/- 10%. The surface temperature monitoring with the included sensors have a range of -40 to 85 degrees C with an accuracy of +/- 1 degree C.
The data is sent through Bluetooth to a Samsara IGX1 base and then uploaded to the cloud via the integrated cell modem. Once the data is in the cloud, Samsara calculates the RMS velocity in each direction as well as an FFT spectrum between about 10 and 1000 Hz.
Below is an example of the overall RMS velocity level data for X,Y & Z. You can see it uses the ISO 10816 recommended levels for warning and shutdown. The alarm levels are designated by light red and yellow corridors.
Below is an example of the FFT spectrum output, this example shows the plots provided for the Y direction of the HM11 sensor. There are two plots generated from the FFT output, with a standard display of the amplitude vs. frequency for the most recent data sample on top and a colored (blue to red) amplitude history of the top plot right below. Data goes back in time moving down, and the timeframe is the same as the timeframe that was selected in the velocity RMS plot above.
The interface is simple and user friendly. Contact Neal Systems HERE to request a demonstration.
