Dear friends:

I have a dude respect to monitore two rollers bearings in the same point because I don't have any other point to do it; that is the case of a centrifugal decanter where the bowl runs to diferent rpm from the conveyor rpm.
The question is:
Is it possible to get in a spectrum the damage frequency of both roller bearing? Please see the attached drawing.

I will appreciate whatever comment.

Thanks

Miguel C.

Miguel,

I have run into the same problem with ours and not been successful due to the location of the conveyor bearing and the slow speed of the bearing. The bowl speed of our machines are roughly 4,000 rpm and the conveyor is somewhere around 40 rpm making it next to impossible. One thing I have noticed over the years though is when I start to see a high imbalance accompanied with an increase in looseness this usually means a conveyor bearing is on the way out. Not all the time but most. I hope this helps. Dave.

We haven't found a way of vibration monitoring the conveyor bearing either. Have been able to detect some problems by monitoring torque however, it is usually detected too late to be of any use.
Best to examine operating and maintenance practices.
We found most of our problems were caused by lack of lubriction.
1) To grease the conveyor bearings requires a shutdown and partial disassembly of machine. The routine to do this was often skipped due to the minor production impact. This routine is now always done when due.
2) An inspection of the machine when stripped showed that the lubrication ports were not ideally located to get the grease to where it is most needed and there were no seals to help keep it there. Minor modifications were made to overcome this problem.
3) An operating practice used is to flush the machine to clean. This was done by introducing an unmetered flow of flushing solvent into the machine from a number of sources. The result was that often the machine would be completely filled with solvent. The solvent is also an excellent degreaser and would flush the grease from the conveyor bearings. Education of operators on the possible damaging effects when flushing as well as the addition of meters on the flush lines (doing this modification now) will hopefully eliminate this problem.

Our other strategy is to insist on the use of only the best available bearings. Cheaper substitutes from other manufacturers are not an option.