MotorSense

Wireless Equipment Monitoring Solution

The Escherlogic Wireless Equipment Monitoring System was designed as a modular three component system to provide a monitoring, notification and downtime prediction solution for commercial/industrial facilities. The system can be applied to monitor everything from refrigeration components to bearings and motors. Timely alerts and comprehensive reporting allow plant maintenance personnel to identify and anticipate equipment problems. maintenance service can be coordinated and unscheduled downtime averted.

Although sensing equipment exists that can be integrated to provide a similar solution, it is very expensive, requiring conduit to be installed, the use of special wiring and components, and, of course the labor. Escherlogic’s Wireless Equipment Monitoring Solution can be installed in a fraction of the time and at fraction of the cost when compared to wired systems.

The system consists of:

• one or more wireless battery-powered sensors (one for each point being monitored).
• one or more PoE or AC/DC powered RF Access Point (RFAP2) to bridge data from the wireless sensors to a network.
• Optional Micro Server to collect, process and monitor sensor data, generate alerts and reports or you can forward the data to SeNSoRNET for a cloud based solution.

Escherlogic has a variety of sensor types that can be used within the Wireless Equipment Monitoring Solution. The most common of these is the Wireless Explosion-proof Temperature Sensor.

This sensor is the ideal solution for temperature monitoring retrofit of existing equipment. Temperature is measured with a thermocouple sensing washer which is bolted to the equipment with no costly wiring and conduit needed, making installation easy. Virtually no system configuration is required with features like auto RF channel selection and adaptive RF power control to relay the sensor’s data to the closest available RFAP. The sensors are powered by a single AA battery and provide a very long battery life to ensure very low maintenance. As well as accurate temperature measurement from the bolt-on thermocouple, and the internal cold junction temperature for ambient temperature, battery voltage is also included as part of the data payload to provide long-term scheduling for battery replacement. Temperature measurement intervals can be adjusted remotely from 10 seconds. up to 4+min. and up to four different temperature trip points can be configured on-board the sensor. In the unlikely situation where the sensor fails to exchange its data with an RFAP, (e.g. RF interference) the sensor will automatically spool data to internal RAM and then automatically off-load it when the RFAP data exchange re-establishes.

The RFAP2 is an 802.3af compliant Power over Ethernet (PoE) device, making RFAP2 placement very simple as a single network cable is all that is required.  If you don’t have PoE available, don’t worry the RFAP2 can also be powered with 12-24VAC/VDC.  The RFAP2 can be mounted on ceilings, walls, etc. in the vicinity of the RF sensors.  Sensor to RFAP2 distance will vary with environment, but can achieve distances of 1000 feet or more. In applications with high RF sensor density, high levels of interference, or large coverage areas, more RFAP2,s can be added with no additional configuration required. RFAP2s will automatically arbitrate and balance their channel settings and sensor data traffic loading.

The RFAP provides many different protocols for various purposes:

• DHCP for automatic network configuration. (devices can be statically configured as well)
• SNTP time syncing. All data is time stamped to allow correlation between events and equipment state.
• HTTP based web front access.
• Escherlogic’s (BEACON) client to offer over-the-firewall secure data exchange.
• Telnet server for system monitoring.
• FTP server for file transfer.

Escherlogic’s BEACON protocol allows RFAP2s to be physically located within range of the RF sensors but on the protected side of a firewall and still be able to move sensor data securely to our SeNSoRNET server.

Integration of other types of environmental data is as simple as selecting the right sensor type. The RFAP2 is compatible with Escherlogic’s complete line of RF devices including:

• VI Sensor for analog current and voltage signal measurement.
• Relative Humidity / Temperature combination sensor.

All Escherlogic temperature sensors are available as N.I.S.T. traceable devices where necessary.

The Escherlogic Micro Server is a low-cost, small, efficient, fanless, full featured server whose primary purpose is to collect and log all sensor data from RFAP2s, provide access to live data, generate alarms, warnings, and reports in HTML and CSV formats. A mounting bracket allows the server to be top, back, or bottom mounted for walls, shelfs or inside cabinets, and a 2U mounting plate provides a 19″ rack-mount solution. It can operate as a headless server or with monitor and keyboard to provide a direct interface.

The flexibility and power of the Micro Server means that it can be easily used to support all functions required by RFAP2s such as DHCP server, SNTP server, databases, data bridging, SNMP as a managed device, mail services, messaging services, web services, etc. to allow the system to be completely stand-alone data island or as part of an integrated network. As a gateway connected to an existing network, or, adding an optional cellular modem and enabling the VPN software is the ideal solution to bridging data from remote sites.

The Micro Server collects data on preconfigured intervals. The intervals are determined by the normal rate of change of temperature being monitored. Typical use in the industrial setting is one sample per motor per 10 minute period.

Warning alerts are sent out to configured email and/or SMS recipients when a monitored point exceeds the nominal operating range and remains there for a preset period of time.

Emergency alerts are sent when the monitored device reaches the alarm temperature.

Each sensor is configurable based on the recognized nominal operating temperature of the attached equipment.

Reports aggregate accumulated data and provide trends regarding how each piece of monitored equipment is performing day by day and week by week. The statistics in the daily report are a rolling day and 7 day average. By comparing daily reports it will be easy to detect emerging equipment failures. The report will display temperatures outside of the nominal range in ‘orange’ text and temperatures outside of the warning range in ‘red’ text. This allows the recipients to spot trouble conditions at a glance.

Using the Micro Server in conjunction with a monitor will provide a active display of all monitored points indicating ‘all is well’, ‘warning’ or ‘emergency’ for each monitored point. The ‘at-a-glance’ presentation is one more mode of delivery that operators and maintanence personnel can use to maintain awareness of the conditions within the facility.

Explosion-proof Wireless Temperature Sensor Specifications:

Dimensions: 8.0” x 5.0” x 5.0” (H x W x D)
Sensor: Type- K thermocouple 1/4” I.D. Washer, 55” lead 20 AWG glass-on-glass insulated, rated to 480 deg. C (900 deg. F). (1)
Environment: -30 deg. C. to +70 deg. C
Enclosure: Cast Aluminium, Buna ‘N’ O-ring & SS Ball chain to cover
Rating: FM/CSA Class 1, Div. 1 Groups B,C,D Class 2 Div. 1 Groups E,F,G
Frequency: 915MHz-919MHz ISM Band.
Antenna: ¼ wave whip
Recommended battery: Energizer L91 AA Lithium
Mounting: Anodized Aluminium bracket/ground plane and plated nut supplied.
Sampling Interval: 10 seconds – 250 seconds
Notes:

1. Optional thermocouples and lead lengths available.

RFAP2 RF Access Point Specifications:

Dimensions: 4.7” x 2.5” x 2” (H x W x D)
Single Gang Cast or PVC Box with 1/2” NPT Hub & ground plane cover plate. (1)
Antenna: replaceable ¼ wave whip (RPSMA)
Network: 10/100M Ethernet (PoE) (2)
Power: PoE 802.3af Class 1 or 12-24VAC/VDC
Frequency: 915MHz-919MHz ISM Band
Notes:

1. Optional Explosion proof enclosure available.
2. Optional relay board available for 4 configurable contacts.

Micro Server Specifications:

Dimensions: 12.2” x 2.5” x 7.1” (W x H x D)
Mounting: 2U plate and wall/shelf bracket supplied.
Finish: Textured black powder-coated.
Power: 120VAC, 25W typ. 100W rated internal supply.
Network: 10/100/1000M Ethernet
CPU: Atom D2700
Storage: 320G / 500G / 750G / 1T (specify at time of order)

To learn more about the system download Motor_Temperature_Sensing_System_V1 or contact us.