PULSAR - Online condition monitoring

  • Reduces the equipment test interval to a minimum
  • Trends accurately the onset of potential failure
  • Provides detailed analyses to identify failing components
80% of the live cycle costs of an electric motor can be the electricity; minor alignment and imbalances waste upwards of 20% of the live cycle costs.

Pulsar is in final development, it uses the standard SCADA to provide a cost effective sophisticated online condition-monitoring tool. It will be released in q1 2006 In many cases, saving just one visit to a location will pay for the capital cost of the Pulsar unit. The Pulsar will be permanently online, either carrying out an automatic test schedule, and/ or completing manual driven checks remotely.

The Pulsar is one of the Controlstar® Din rail mounting I/O modules, it provides embedded high performance signal processing for vibration analysis offering high quality condition monitoring without the high costs typical of these systems; existing Controlstar® installations can be enhanced to provide condition monitoring at a minimum costs. Using the direct Ethernet link the Pulsar connects as a peripheral to a Controlstar®. In this the mode Controlstar® acts as a gateway passing through the specialised vibration displays and operator settings between the Pulsar and the SCADA.

Waterfall for runup and rundown

Logorthmic plots

The Controlstar continues to provide the full functionality of PLC and SCADA. The Pulsar's Tag's for digitals and filtered analogues can be mapped into the Controlstars PLC and SCADA allowing the designer through Fusion to develop interaction such as an automatic plant shutdown on detection of high vibration's. The Pulsar also operates independently of the Controlstar® by connecting to a SCADA via an Ethernet or dial-up connection.

The Pulsar uses Controlstar Systems standard SCADA, in this the navigation on the left side of the screen remains the same, the operator easily access the individual Pulsar by selecting the unit using the mouse. The mimic or graphical area is used to display the test results received from the addressed Pulsar. The upper panel is used to locate historical results for comparison, and the banner at the base shows the alarm history. The standard process mimics and trends can coexist in the same SCADA system.

The data from the Pulsar systems are stored in the Cloudscape relational Database, providing an open system capability for the condition monitoring data to be used by third party systems.

Pulsar has two operating mode

24/7 sentinel Mode

In this mode the pulsar follows pre programmed test schedules, these are programmed using 'Fusion' and downloaded, directly via the Ethernet port or over the connecting network. Each Pulsar module can check the results of the tests against up to 64 different FFT profiles; each FFT can have from 512 to 2048 points. The maximum bandwidth is 50 KHz. Every FFT can have up to four warning/ or alarm limits in four different frequency bands. In the event of an alarm condition being triggered the Pulsar alerts the user directly, by dial up connection, or SMS. The Pulsar records the main test results, which the user can access at any convenient time. During low cost tariff periods the scheduled dial of the system can be used to automatically collect the data.

Remotely controlled instrument mode

In this mode the user accesses the Pulsar from the SCADA and directly drives the testing, the results are displayed in real time on the SCADA. This mode allows the operator to use their skills to investigate a remote system without the costs and time wastage of visiting the site.
Increase asset capacity - equipment permanently online

The Pulsar is totally integated with the Controlstar
Improve safety -
no manual intervention required

Identifying harmonics
Reduce inspection costs -
testing is automatic
Lower energy costs - by ensuring the optimum efficiency of equipment.