Following our recent webinar Bridging the Gap with Digital Vibration Monitoring 2.0, we received a surge of great questions from attendees eager to understand how digital solutions can be applied to real-world applications. One topic that sparked particular interest was vibration monitoring of complex gearbox systems—those with variable-speed and multi-stage designs.
In this follow-up post, we’re answering your most pressing questions about vibration monitoring using our 883M digital accelerometer, high-frequency IEPE sensors with digital adapters, and how these tools integrate with protocols like Modbus, OPC UA, and MQTT to bring vibration data online. Whether you're optimizing for the cloud or integrating with existing infrastructure, these answers shed light on what’s possible—and what’s practical—in the world of digital condition monitoring.
(ICYMI, click here to watch the webinar streaming on demand.)
Question: I need to implement continuous vibration monitoring of a variable-speed, two-stage gearbox. The speed range for this gearbox is 25 RPM to 1000 RPM. Is this possible with your digital sensor?
Answer: General purpose accelerometers often have a wide enough frequency response to cover the full monitoring range for a gearbox. Our 883M digital triaxial accelerometer with Modbus output reliably measures calculated vibration metrics over the frequency range 2 Hz - 5 kHz and an FFT down to 0 Hz.
When the gear mesh frequency is high, though, due to planetary stages or high-speed shafts, a general-purpose accelerometer may not cover the relevant frequency range. In that case, it would be better to use a high frequency IEPE accelerometer and a digital adapter. We have an inline adapter that digitizes the signal from a single accelerometer, or a vibration data source 4-channel digital adapter.
In both scenarios, the “continuous” requirement needs definition. As digital protocols such as Modbus, MQTT or OPC UA operate off a similar principle of asking for and receiving data, our digital offerings don’t truly operate with real-time feedback. There is a delay, small as it may be. For instantaneous results, you are best off sticking with an analog input fed into a condition monitoring system.
Q: Is your digital sensor battery powered or does it need a continuous power supply?
A: Environments that truly demand wireless monitoring are limited. Wired sensors are more practical in the vast majority of installations. The 883M is a wired digital accelerometer, and the same mating cable is used to provide power and transmit data. This allows the user to take more measurements more frequently - without frequent battery changes. And it doesn’t require adding wireless routers to feed the Modbus data to your process control and monitoring system.
Q: Does your sensor require your software or data acquisition system for its operation?
A: No, none of our digital products require proprietary software or DAQ systems. Our products provide output in Modbus, OPC UA or MQTT so that it is compatible with your existing digital manufacturing and data systems at the operations, enterprise, or cloud level.
Q: I am considering a cloud-based continuous monitoring system. What protocol allows sharing data to cloud?
A: Most digital sensors, like our 883M, are Modbus based. MQTT is a common protocol for cloud-based systems. Both our single-channel inline adapters (the ILA200 series) and 4-channel adapters (the VDS100 series) can provide MQTT output, so we recommend them for cloud-based monitoring.
Q: Does the 4-channel adapter synchronize all four sensor's data in same time stamp? How are you capturing equipment speed?
A: As long as the data is being digitally requested from the client for each channel simultaneously, then yes, it will be received and logged with the same timestamp. In addition to synchronizing the 4 channels, it includes an RPM input (tachometer). This allows you to capture the running speed and high frequency vibration characteristics from a specialized IEPE sensor and output that data in MQTT that is compatible with a cloud-based monitoring system.
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