I can't hide my amusement any longer! There have been several postings about the Stone Age Days:

How can I balance my machine without a speed sensor (ie no phase data)?

How can I balance my fan without any instruments from a person who does (claims to do) vibration analysis?

Does your "Route Tool Kit" include a stethoscope, special screw driver or listening stick?

I heard a funny/unusual sound coming from my machine; does anyone know what is causing it?

I measured the vibrations when I heard the noise; do that help you tell me what is causing the noise?

The specification calls for balancing a nickel ($0.05 US) coin on edge to prove the vibrations is smooth enough, so how much vibration is that?

I have a laser system, but could you tell me how to align the cooling tower with dial indicators or feeler guages or finger nails?

I guess I'll sell all of my instruments and buy a motor home, since all I need is screw driver and a nickel in my pocket! I am just not sure anyone will hire me if that's all I bring to the plant!

It's Friday

Walt

You left out finding mounting looseness by touch.

Hey Walt
I'm with you on that in the fact it is friday THANK GOD!!. As far as the stone age thing it just goes to show the scope of peoples thoughts and yes they can be very amusing.This afternoon after taking a reading on one of our hog motors I thought it was a lube issue so I sent the electrician out with half the normal regreasing amount. He said as soon as he started to pump the lube in the niose went away but someone had to ask do you think that was it? Have a nice easy weekend and make sure you do come back to us in the stone age

Hey you guys, from over the lake, easy on the Stone Age thing. We are quite sensitive you know!
Have a good week-end.

Most electronic gadgets give better reports compared to a photo of a superglued coin. Have nice weekend. Olov

How about a photo of water splashing out of a bucket placed in a proposed location for a extremely vibration sensitive piece of equipment. "Maybe this isn't the best spot?"

Before recording initial data, eyeballing the machine and saying, "Before we start, how about loosening the belts". Afterward, " How about that!" Actually, this happened often.

"After we took the towel out of the fan, it doesn't seem to need balancing."

One Friday night, I got a call to balance a fan that was waaay waaay out of balance. I walked around the base and noticed a broken mounting bolt, wedged a screw driver under the bolt, and said goodbye without getting the analyzer out of my car. The customer was happy with only the bill and not a report!

Sometimes, we don't really need instruments.

Or superglue!

Of course, at my age, I probably qualify as a stone age instrument!

Duncan

Hypothetically speaking,

If one were out on a job and miles or even days from being able to get a replacement for something which happened to get broken (say maybe one's tach light or speed sensor) that was an important part of one's instrument and one was unable to use one's high tech instrument because of this broken part and there was this piece of equipment which needed to be balanced NOW and this one had no clue as to what to do to balance this piece of equipment except with one's instrument, would not it have been nice to have learned somewhere along the way how to balance this equipment to a runable level, even though not perfect, without the use of one's phase tach, until one was able to get the replacement part to do a possibly better job?

What if one is visting in a plant and walks casually past a paper roll in a paper machine and one lays one's hand on a randomly selected roll for no reason other than to see how smooth this roll is running while his tour guide is talking and one turns to the person who is giving the tour and tells them, you might had better check this roll for a cage problem and later finds out when an instrument is brought on site, true, there was showing a severe cage related problem in the bearing. My oh my, listening and feeling does work, but who needs to feel or listen, I have a $30K instrument.

Hope I never forget some of the stone age things I have learned over the years.

Of course this is only my opinion, and maybe it is because I am from the stone age and I could be totally wrong.

I'm not suggesting that instruments aren't useful sometimes. After all, I am the President of a company that makes instruments and software and I've been involved in instrument design for the last thirty-seven years. Our web pages have a title at the top of each page that says, "State of the art automatic condition diagnostic, monitoring, and balancing software". If there were more space across the top of the pages, I suppose we would add "and hardware."

;-))

Duncan,

Had a laugh reading your stories... Ahhhh, the memories.

I once got called in to perform balancing (you remember the days when it couldn't be anything but unbalance, I'm sure) on a hood fan.

Walked in, had a look, and pulled out my pad to start issuing traffic violations. No instrument, 32 recommendations total based on observation alone... Bearings heavily damaged (no need for an instrument), misalignment and shafts too close (through coupling), so close in fact that they were knocking (only time I've ever seen that), one motor leg broken, floor studs half or completely shorn, flexible joints pinched between scroll and duct, and I forget the rest... Of course, it also was unbalanced, but there was little point in correcting that under the situation.

I've also seen the rag, towel, cardboard or other stuck in rotors.

I surmise such cases are scarcer nowadays, as I haven't heard of any similar instances recently, or am I dreaming in Technicolor?

We are still called out to balance and it´s everything including and excluding balancing. Saw mill owners as example have a problem to accept that balancing heavy wheels need reasonably good bearings to be able to balance good even if the bearing might survive another couple of months and owners of exhaust fans that think it´s strange that a requirement for balancing is that the fan is cleaned otherwise the work will soon be undone. Normally it´s possible to explain why and we try to forsee and explain things like that when the job is called in. Still not every balancing is balancing. Olov

Hi to all,

Ralph Stewart :

My sentiments exactly !

So... ok... I will be 75 on the 4th of july... yes, the 4th of july this here year...
So... you can say I am of the stone age, most likely...

However, thru my years of vibration analysis, I must admit that I have used some the pre-hystorical methods mentioned above.

Gosh... when IRD came around with their 350 I almost went out of my mind... at last, a piece of equipment that was to make my life a lot easier.
Woops, my mistake... did I say easier ? Not really, at least not before I decided to conjugate my years of experience with the new technoly and I must say that one should not put his entire faith on what the instrument tells you.

So... the modern times are here with better and more sophisticated apparatus. However, the human brain is the same size still !

My lesson is : Use the instruments to CONFIRM what your years of experience are telling you !

I may be way out in left field, but...

Marko Leo

Markoleo and Ralph,

At last, men after my own heart
I have said for years, and still believe, that the instrument confirms most of what my eyes, ears, nose and feet are telling me about the equipment. I do like it when it tells me something that is just beginning to get it's feelings hurt, but not physically damaged yet.

And Ralph, I have had my laser go bad on a job. I winged it (was on step of putting on the correction weight) and got by. I bought a backup laser (now have three)

Good thread

Dave

All the consultants, I am looking for one whose resume states that he has a bag of nickels. Countries with flat sided coins don't meet my standards. The ability to properly use coins would impress me.

Did I mention impress me negatively?

Bill - have you been hanging around machines with light rotors, fluid film bearings, and heavy cases too much?

Walt

Maybe you can show some of those old techniques to the younger generations who might have been teased by the experienced seniors about them?

I have came across several comments about using CMMS from the old generations that "In the old days, we don't need computers to do planning or maintenance management." It's quite frustrating to hear this kind of views nowdays. They are quite right and can stick to their manual hands about that.

I would like to add more technique to your list:
Use your hand to detect a steam leak. To make it visible, find any strip on the ground (what that is) to be placed in front of the steam leak and see whether it's flipping. Move the strip a bit to gauge the size or location of the leak. Note: I have never practiced this but I saw others doing so once.

On a more serious note, can someone write up something to bridge the gap and to map the old techniques with the modern ones?

needless to say, personal safety is a big consideration when you are finding a steam leak, particularly at high pressures and temperatures.

Duncan,

Today, many of our plants are not stationary; they are only anchored to the bottom. Everything moves.

If you look at a gas turbine, the casing is flexible, the bearings may be fluid film or rolling element - the shaft? There may be more than one. Generally, the ones with rolling element bearings could use some extra instrumentation; unless, one wants to use the yeller handled analyzer. Light rotors? A modern power generation GT rotor weights > 100,000 lbs.

In the oil and gas business we pump and compress a lot. There are a lot of reciprocating machines (speed may be very slow), screw compressors, centrifigal, sliding vane, axial, scroll, whatever is appropriate. We do instrument our recips; losing production costs real money compared to the maintenance and capital costs of the equipment. Drivers include syncronous and induction motors some with variable speed drives, both small and large, and gas turbines. We don't use many steam turbines in the upstream part of the business, but we have many reciprocating engines. Most every compressor has a bank or banks of cooling fans associated with it.

A question to maybe put a twist to this thread. I believe in using our five senses and the great instrumentation available today. You must be present at the machine to use either of the current methods. I am a believer in being present when measurements are taken so the senses can be used. How does remote vibration monitoring, which is being presented to this business, fit in the future? This should enable us to cover more machines but I wonder if this could become an information overload?

Needless to say I find this thread positively inspired for an April Fool's day...

quote:

Needless to say I find this thread positively inspired for an April Fool's day...

Is April the only month I am a "fool"?

I don't think so, from past experiences. Seems to be a year long event for me, not just the 1st day of April.