FEATURE
Your motors are talking to you
Are you listening?
The low voltage motor is the workhorse of many industries, used to drive a broad range
of machines, including conveyors, mixers, pumps and fans.
At present most LV motors are simply run until they fail. This can cause
a number of problems, such as downtime, secondary damage to
other equipment, lost production and poor quality.
Monitoring the condition of each motor in a plant is a complex and costly challenge.
ABB has developed a compact ABB
Ability™ Smart Sensor that is attached
to the frame of low voltage induction
motors. No wiring is needed. Using
on-board algorithms, based on ABB’s
decades of motor expertise, the
ABB Ability™ Smart Sensor relays
information about the motor’s health,
via a smartphone and over the internet,
to a secure server. This solution can
make huge numbers of motors into
smart devices, enabling them to benefit
from intelligent services.
The smart sensor takes advantage of
ABB’s concept of the Internet of Things,
Services and People (IoTSP) and opens
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Global MDA Journal may 2018
up new opportunities for machine
builders and end users operating large
production facilities.
Attached directly to the motor frame,
the sensor is small, unobtrusive, self-
powered and most importantly, creates
a wireless connection to the cloud.
It is easily fitted to the motor in a
matter of minutes. Once installed, the
motor’s nameplate details and bearing
information are fed into the sensor, and
a wireless connection is established
to transmit data via a smartphone or
a gateway to the cloud. Sophisticated
algorithms analyze the motor data
and convert it into useful actionable
information. The smart sensor monitors
the motor’s performance and can
detect issues like bearing faults, air
gap eccentricity, cooling problems
and overloading. It can reveal issues
that account for 70 percent of motor
failures.
The smart sensor technology is a
maintenance revolution for plant
engineers. Instead of making time-
consuming manual measurements
and reports on each motor, engineers
can now easily access each motor’s
health and operations parameters at
any time from smartphones, tablets
or PCs. A quick glance at the screen