Vibration Monitoring System

What is a Vibration Monitoring System?

Monitoring these parameters helps identifying early faults like imbalance, bearing faults, looseness, misalignment, and others. New vibration monitoring systems using wireless transmission and long-life batteries are now replacing the industrial wired accelerometers all over the world

Introducing our Vibration Monitoring System | PHANTOM®

PHANTOM® is a wireless vibration monitoring system that integrates other parameters such as temperature, current, speed, and general purpose values such as pressure, flow, and tank level into a single diagnosis system. Additionally, our sensors have an exceptional battery life of up to 100,000 measurements, and they are very easy to install. Equally important, PHANTOM® can send data to a local database or to our cloud-based system, EI-Analytic™. At any moment, you can track your machinery condition using any device such as a smartphone, computer, or a tablet.

Frequently asked questions

What are PHANTOM® sensors for?

They monitor the health of your machinery. The best seller is the vibration sensor, which comes in two versions: high range for high-speed machinery and low range for low speed. The vibration sensor is triaxial, and there is also a biaxial version and All-in-One versions, both in high and low range.

The family also includes temperature, thermal camera, current, RPM and dry contact sensors, plus general purpose sensors that accept any third-party sensor with a 4–20 mA, 0–10 V or ±2.2 V high-sample-rate output.

Are PHANTOM® sensors only for critical machinery?

No. PHANTOM® was designed to be installed on any machine, and it pays off even where the machine is not critical:

• More precision, because readings are taken far more often and always from exactly the same spot.
• Fewer analyst hours spent collecting, and more spent analysing.
• Earlier detection of faults.
• Lower cost in the medium term on monitoring equipment.

For genuinely critical machinery there is the Defiant, which records permanently, trips machine shutdowns instantly and captures 16 simultaneous channels.

Do they connect to the cloud or to a local database?

Both options exist.

In the cloud, the system uploads the data and you get notifications straight to your phone.

On premises, the data never leaves your server. In exchange, the system cannot push notifications to a phone — it does store them inside the system itself.

What kinds of sensors do you have?

The full family:

• Vibration — triaxial in high and low range, biaxial, All-in-One (high and low range) and ATEX.
• Temperature — non-contact, and thermocouple with 2, 3 and 4 channels.
• Thermal camera.
• Current — 3 and 4 channels.
• RPM.
• Dry contact — 4 channels, to read states: start and stop, the position of a switch, a panel alarm.
• General purpose — 4–20 mA (4 channels), VDC (4 channels) and ±2.2 V high sample rate, to connect any third-party sensor.

What is the frequency range of the sensors?

It depends on the version and on the generation:

• High range, Gen 1 to Gen 3: 10 kHz.
• High range, Gen 4: 8 kHz.
• Low range, all generations: 4 kHz.

The low range version has a lower noise floor, so it detects vibration of much smaller amplitude.

How many resolution lines does it have?

Gen 1 to Gen 4: 12,800 triaxial, 25,600 single axis.

The PHANTOM® Max is triaxial too, and measuring on a single axis it reaches 204,800 lines.

The frequency range is changed by adjusting the sample rate, and with it the recording time: from 1 second up to 48 seconds.

How far do the sensors transmit?

PHANTOM® sensors use BLE 5.0.

• Gen 1 to Gen 4 and the PHANTOM® sensors that are not for vibration: between 100 and 140 m line of sight.
• PHANTOM® Max: up to 3 km line of sight, field tested.

What wireless technology do PHANTOM® sensors use?

BLE 5.0.

Does the PHANTOM® Max replace the others?

No — it solves a different problem. The Max exists in high and low range, and it is the right choice when you need reach (kilometres line of sight), very high resolution or years of battery. For normal plant monitoring, the current-generation PHANTOM® sensors remain the natural pick.

Is there a biaxial PHANTOM®, or an all-in-one?

Yes. Besides the triaxial in high and low range, the family includes a biaxial version and the All-in-One versions, in high and low range.

Are the sensors waterproof?

Yes, and the rating depends on the product:

• PHANTOM® Gen 4 (EPH-V83 / EPH-V82) and the rest of the vibration family: IP69.
• PHANTOM® Max: IP67.

Both ratings allow permanent installation outdoors and in wet environments; IP69 additionally withstands high-pressure, high-temperature washdown.

Do you have ATEX sensors?

Yes — the PHANTOM® ATEX sensors are the yellow ones. The rest of the PHANTOM® vibration sensors are going through ATEX certification.

What temperature can the sensors withstand?

Up to 85 °C. That limit comes from the battery, not from the sensor components.

What kind of battery do they use?

A CR2477, easy to replace.

How long does the battery last?

Between 2 and 5 years — and that range is not vagueness, it depends on the configuration.

With the default settings, 2 years are guaranteed. It stretches if you move the gateway closer or lower the samples per day; it shortens if the sensor transmits more often.

The PHANTOM® Max is the exception: with power transmission off it reaches 10 years on default settings, or 2 years at the maximum number of daily transmissions.

How do you change the battery?

Unscrew the sensor cap, take the battery out and put the new one in. It is important to tighten the cap again and check that the seal is properly seated, because that is what keeps the IP69 rating.

What information do I get from the sensor?

Full spectral data: the time waveform (TWF) and the FFT. From that raw data the software computes velocity, acceleration envelope, kurtosis and many more parameters.

How often does the sensor send data?

By default, FFT and time waveform every 6 hours and RMS every hour.

Both can be configured down to once per minute — bearing in mind that this increases battery consumption a great deal.

Can I request recordings on demand from the cloud?

Yes, from anywhere in the world. The gateway receives the request and the signal arrives within seconds.

Can I connect to a PHANTOM® from my phone?

Yes, and it is one of its distinctive traits. Besides transmitting to the gateway, if you walk near one or several sensors you can see in WiserVibe the overall vibration values and internal temperature of every sensor in range, without connecting to any of them.

And if you want the detail, you can connect to one to download the full signal and run the FFT analysis — without disturbing its connection to the gateway.

Can I do ODS with PHANTOM®?

Yes. PHANTOM® sensors are the only ones in the world able to synchronise with each other to within 40 microseconds, which lets them record simultaneously and generate three-dimensional ODS simulations. That same capability allows phase measurement across every channel of a group of sensors.

Can I do torsional vibration analysis with PHANTOM®?

Yes, and it is excellent for it. Being wireless, it mounts directly on the rotating shaft, and it keeps transmitting regardless of speed.

How does the machine learning work?

There are two models, and they solve different problems:

• one learns the alarm levels from the machine’s own history;
• the other identifies behaviour patterns and groups them into operating modes. This one is the only unsupervised model: nobody tells it what to look for.

Does it have automatic diagnosis?

Yes. The automatic diagnosis lists the probable diagnoses and assigns a probability to each one. It can also be fed with the user’s own data.

How do I know whether the machine was running when the sensor measured?

Through several routes, depending on what you have installed: the vibration level itself, the estimated RPM the software derives from the signal, a PHANTOM® current sensor on the motor, or a dry contact wired to the starter.

What is the PHANTOM® dry contact for?

To read states, not vibration: a machine starting and stopping, the position of a switch, an alarm on a panel. It has 4 channels, and it answers questions such as whether the machine was running when a measurement was taken.

Does the system send notifications?

Yes. EI-Analytic™ notifies through the WiserVibe app and by email.

Is it compatible with SCADA systems?

Yes. The gateway connects over Modbus TCP/IP, OPC and MQTT. On top of that, EI-Analytic™ has its own SCADA section, configurable per area or per machine.

Do you have APIs?

Yes. We share the database API to pull the data out and send it wherever you need, and also the sensor library if you want to build your own analysis system.

How many users can access the software?

There is no limit. The database can be shared with customers or other users who already have an account, or you can invite them to create one.

Is the software included?

Yes, from the purchase of a single sensor. It also includes a 1 GB database free of charge.

Beyond 1 GB there is an annual storage fee. On-premises systems have no annual fee, whatever the storage.

How much is the software’s annual fee?

The software has no annual fee. You only pay if you contract cloud storage packages. On-premises systems have no annual fee at all, regardless of storage.

Can PHANTOM® be used for balancing?

No. The PHANTOM® does not accept an optical sensor input, which is what balancing requires. For that there is the EI WiSER® 3X or the GX-400 interface.

The software is the same for every sensor and includes the full set of balancing tools: Digivibe MX® on PC and WiserVibe on mobile.

Can ultrasound be measured?

The general purpose sensors (0–10 V and 4–20 mA) can be connected to third-party sensors, including ultrasound ones, and bring their signal into the system.

What kind of machines is it used on?

Any industrial machinery that produces vibration — above all anything driven by an electric or combustion motor.

Do you have sensors for low-speed machines?

Yes, the low range PHANTOM® vibration sensor is the one for slow machinery.

How are the sensors attached to the machines?

Two ways:

1. Drilling and tapping a thread on the machine, and screwing the sensor in.
2. Bonding a threaded metal base with epoxy and screwing the sensor onto it. This is the most common method because it does not modify the machine.

What kind of adhesive should I use?

Many epoxies work. We have had very good results with Loctite.

Can I move a sensor from one machine to another?

Yes, but it is worth understanding the effect: the sensor carries its history with it. When you reassign it to another point, the new trend starts where the new machine starts. If the move is temporary — a test, a backup machine — it is better to register it as its own point so the trend does not get muddled.

Can they be installed on vehicles?

Yes. They have been installed on mining trucks, where internet only exists near the operations centres: the gateways record the signals and send them to the cloud once they regain a connection.

Are there interference problems with other signals?

Rarely. Bluetooth and Wi-Fi are very mature, very robust networks.

What is the warranty on the sensors?

One year, with the option of an extended warranty for one or two more.

How much does training cost?

Every purchase includes videos and documentation at no cost. If additional training is needed, we are glad to quote it.