Each node clamps to the structure and picks up the bearing through the frame, not through the air, the way a fitter listens with a spanner to the ear. Because it couples to steel, dust on the sensor does not affect it. The same measurement is taken the same way every time, whoever is on shift.
First sign of bearing failure: friction from contamination, water or grease loss. Drives Plan.
Bearing impacts once pits form; roller shell damage and imbalance. Drives Watch.
What the fitter will hear. With high vibration, drives Alert.
A late indicator. Relevant when mounted close to a bearing; counted only alongside another signal.
A distressed bearing produces contact ultrasound stress waves before the defect is large enough to move the frame.
Belts, drives, loading and wind put most of their energy at lower frequencies, so a small bearing signal stands out.
Contact ultrasound fades with distance through steel, so a node hears mainly the structure around it and a flag points to a zone, not a long stretch of conveyor. It can reach beyond a single frame, so one node may cover more than one; spacing is set during pilots.
Contact ultrasound can also move for reasons that go nowhere, such as a short-lived change in lubrication, load or water ingress. That is why Plan is a scheduling grade, not an alarm, and why the trend and the recording come with it.
Nodes share one cable that carries both power and data, so there are no batteries in the nodes. A controller at the end of each section powers the nodes, runs the measurements and keeps every raw recording locally. Results go over the mobile network to a server in Australia set up for each client, or a machine on your premises. There is no connection to site IT or OT. Enclosures are designed to meet IP67.
Development and testing: what was built, what it found, and what it doesn’t show yet.
Bearing fault simulator: how bearing faults appear in the envelope spectrum.
