We are looking at getting our tradespersons using basic vibration pens such as the SKF marlin pen. We are a 2 paper machine site with a well established CM group using CSI 2130s. Our VA techs do mostly fault finding and we would like to free up their time to do other work such as Root cause analysis, more advanced vibration analysis ( ODS, calender barring studies, oil analysis, etc) We are thinking of getting the trades to do vibration pen measurements on lower criticality "easier to detect" type equipment such as basic pumps, fans, agitators etc every 4? weeks and cutting back the Vibe tech interval to say 6 months ( from the current 4 weeks) so they can keep their databases up to date. The VA tech are concerned we will have failures, i.e. the pens will miss things. They also think their workload may go up as they will start getting false alarm requests from the trades people. We are interested in hearing from other sites that are doing this or have tried it what their experiences have been?
Thanks

We have operations use the pens here. The main problem is we don't know which beam in the control room they put them on to take measurements. 8-)

In seriousness, a big part of data collection is getting the data from the same point everytime. We painted yellow dots on the equipment and somehow the pen users cant seem to find the point.

We have "lost" half of the pens and no one seems to have noticed.

Aubrey

Looking at the recent post about I phones you might be better off purchasing these for your techs. Probably about the same cost, and you can phone a friend if you need help.


Keith

We tried this and had the same problems as Aubrey described. As well as the work load went up from false reports. The operations or tradesmen take readings on different points evertime can't hold the same amount of pressure on the pen and so on and so one.

I suggest to all my customers that they purchase the SKF pens or some other brand of overall vibration meter to check their own work. To have them compare before and after overall readings on coupling and belt alginments as a quality check. I don't believe that overall readings are a good measurement for trending and determining if a problem is arising. I have seen overall velocity readings go down when a bearing is failing. Besides, trending the pen data requires going back to a clipboard and pencil that we used before the data collectors were available. Even entering the data into a PDA for trending is very labor intensive with little value IMO.

Regards,
John J

quote:

Originally posted by vibesmith:
Looking at the recent post about I phones you might be better off purchasing these for your techs. Probably about the same cost, and you can phone a friend if you need help.

awesome idea

or at least play a cool game while help is coming.

There's an app for that!


Aubrey

Vibration pens can be useful but like Aubrey said they can have usage issues.
I did have an Operations Manager that had operators check temperatures of motors and pumps routinely using an IR gun. A dot was put on each location. Of course that had some issues with consistent readings and I brought that to his attention.
Operations Manager Answer.
He was not real concerned with consistent readings as large discrepancies would be seen and most of all the operators would have to go to the area of the machine and it got them out of the control room.

While the iPhone thing is cool, etc., anyone attempting to use should note that Fmax is limited to about 50 Hz, which ain't going to do us a lot of good.......I also don't think Steve Jobs and co had the wet end of a paper machine in mind when designing the iPhone ....

Hi Planty,

I wouldn't bother with the pens, it's a gimmick that costs a lot of money and will only put a smile on the face of your local SKF rep. If you go through the effort, cost, time and resources to get a person to visit each machine routinely you might as well be wearing a 2130 and collect proper data.

Alternatively make up an "in between" route where only 1 point on motor and 1 point on pump appears. (just untick unwanted points under "modify order of measurement points"") This cuts collection time down and will still catch bearing faults. Will also cut analysis time or you could skip that as well. Perhaps only doing the full route and analysis every 3 months.

To start with, why don't you increase the interval on non critical machines to say 2 months? And take it from there. rgds.

For my money,I would strongly recommend an investment in a complementary technology like ultrasound.
Many organisations are now using ultrasound as a filter for some of their vibration activities with tremendous success.
I believe that you will get a lot more use out of ultrasound than you will on from the pens.

Tom Murphy

Thanks for all your replies.
The technologies we currently use are VA, Thermography, Airbourne ultrasonics, Oil analysis. The airbourne ultrasonics is used for mainly air leaks but we know of its potential for brgs steamtraps, motor arcing etc. We are just developing it towards some of these areas. I would love to hear more about its use as first pass alternative to VA. We have bought a couple of vibration pens so I was hoping to hear more success stories with these, are there any out there? Some maintenance consultant companies recommend their use.
Cheers

Planty,
there are 3 articles written by me in this year's Uptime magazines and several other good articles there from other contributors. If you do not have access to them, send your email address to me at tom@reliabilityteam.com and I will forward them to you.
There is also a lot of good quality information to be found on www.sdtnorthamerica.com (factual statement not meant to be commercially misconstrued).
I am hoping to be going to the VANNZ conference next year too.
Tom Murphy

Vibration pens have a limited frequency range. Many mechanical problems are best detected looking at vibration energy beyond the range of these pens. Was once called to balance a turbine-driven fan because high fan vibration was found using a vibe pen. When taking a routine set of "before" readings, I found very high gearmesh vibration (which the pen could not detect) in the gearbox which was a much more serious problem. That and the gearbox bearings installed upside down (built as speed increaser, but used as speed reducer) was the real problem. Fan vibration disappeared when the gearbox was rebuilt.

Long story short, a vibe pen is "blind" to much of the data we need to be looking at.

I don't have much of an opinion on this, but in Rusty's case it seems to have worked since he got a job and found another problem. That seems in line with the philosophy of their use - when something unusual is detected call someone in for a look.

On the other hand, I can see where they could cause trouble in a facility.

I guess I wasn't clear... many machinery problems generate very little vibration in the frequency range these pens are good for. They will miss a lot of significant problems due to a relatively low measurement range.

Vendor Warning

I think there are two points in question here, but I believe that they need to be looked at separately

1) is it worth the bother of collecting data using overall metereing devices like vibration pens?

2) can you use operators or lubrication techs to collect vibration data and have it be of any use?

IMHO, the answer to 1 is "no, probably not..." and the answer to 2 is "we'd better hope so, or the future for routine vibration data collection is pretty bleak..."

My organization has had over ten years of documented experience setting up and managing operator driven reliability (ODR) and lubrication management (LM) programs, mostly in the pulp and paper business, but also in refineries and chemical plants.

In both ODR and LM programs, the ability of the operators and/or lube techs to collect sensor-based data such as vibration or temperature is usually seen as desirable, but secondary to the more important job of collecting visual or meter data.

However, overall meters have some serious issues, which we have documented in a white paper. Using operators and lube techs to collect data has its fair share of headaches, but if its the choice between using them or getting no data at all - well, it CAN work.

I've attached the white paper (its a few years old now, but all of the significant findings hold true).

The biggest problem we have now is the reliability of the data collection equipment. Its hard to convince operators that something as seemingly solid as an accelerometer is actually quite fragile ... :-)

Steve

Technologies_for_Broad_Distribution_of_Vibration_Data_Collection.pdf (137 KB, 47 downloads) White Paper on Data Collection Tools

We use Vibration pens specially for bearing lubrication assessment and have been able to save many breakdowns. Keep gSE value below 4 and the beaing will get enough food if lubrication is the reason..
Regards
Irshad

The Type of "Pen" Planty mentions is the Marlin Pen, offically known as a MCD Machine Condition Detector. This device utilizes a magnetic base, and provides a repeatable reading. It has led indicators for two levels of alarm for Acceleration, Velocity, Enveloping and Temperature, and it's intrinsically safe. At it's current price point though, your in the range of a single channel FFT analyzer with more capability. I agree that the old style pens had limitations, but most new portable pocket sized units use a magnetic base and or utilize an external sensor to provide a broader frequency range (most are set to ISO standards)and better repeatability. The old style CMVP40/50 SKF pens are obsolete and no longer produced. If there is an interest to see what is currently offered, go to:
http://www.reliabilitydirectst...tion-Meters-s/55.htm

Vendor,
If you for some reason feel the urge to have the classic pen type, and there are, it´s better than nothing, you have it here:
http://www.vtab.se/index.php?page=79&lang=en
Olov