Rockwell Automation expands predictive maintenance offerings

In its continuing effort to supply manufacturers with cost-effective predictive maintenance tools, Rockwell Automation is expanding its XMSeries distributed protection and monitoring product line.

By Plant Engineering Staff September 16, 2003

The addition of modules for Ethernet/IP communication, low-speed vibration and spike energy measurements brings distributed protection and monitoring tools to a wider array of specialized applications, such as hydro turbines, paper rolls, small motors and other machines equipped with rolling element bearings.

“Our new additions to the XM Series line will help bring the benefits of distributed monitoring and protection to plant equipment and machinery that, due to cost and technology restrictions, normally receives little or no predictive maintenance attention,” said Ralph DeLisio, business manager, integrated condition monitoring, Rockwell Automation. “Now, more facilities can take a complete, plant-wide monitoring and protection approach, pushing plant asset availability and uptime to previously unreachable levels.”

The XM Series, the world’s first machine-monitoring and protection system, is designed as a distributed network of modules deployed on an open standard industrial bus. The system allows completely scalable deployment, reduced commissioning time and “hot swappable” module replacement that can be done without shutting down power.

Information gathered by XM Series modules allows maintenance personnel to identify developing equipment faults and correct problems before downtime events occur, avoiding impacts to production and safety. XM modules can communicate directly with programmable controllers or distributed control systems (DCS) through the control network architecture. In addition, the modules can interface with plant asset management software, such as Entek Emonitor Odyssey/Enshare from Rockwell Software. Such compatibility between systems allows all online and surveillance data to be stored in a common database and shared across enterprise asset management systems, as well as corporate and global information networks.

The new XM Series modules include:

  • Ethernet/IP Gateway, which provides a powerful connection between an XM DeviceNet network and a facility’s Ethernet. Designed specifically for use with XM Series modules, these gateways provide complete DeviceNet Master functionality and support for a fully populated DeviceNet network with up to 63 devices. On the Ethernet side, the XM Gateways offer a standard TCP/IP interface and support for both Ethernet/IP and Modbus/TCP protocols.

  • Low-Frequency Vibration Module, which takes the design of the original XM standard vibration module but substitutes a new suite of very low frequency high-pass filter (HPF) selections — allowing for measurements as low as 0.2Hz (12 CPM). The XM low-frequency vibration module is ideally suited for monitoring low-speed machinery such as hydro turbines, fans, gearboxes, paper rolls and extruder presses.

  • gSE Vibration Module that is designed specifically to identify developing faults in rolling element bearings on machines that don’t require continuous, real-time protection. Alternating between standard vibration and spike energy (gSE) measurements insure that the XM gSE module will detect developing faults in rolling element bearings at the earliest possible time thereby allowing more time to plan remedial action. In addition to accepting input from two standard accelerometers, the module accepts one tachometer input to provide speed, phase and order analysis functions.

  • Process and Temperature Modules that include three new intelligent 6-channel monitors where each module is a complete monitoring system in a compact package that is easily installed and maintained. The XM process module can be configured to monitor almost any proportional voltage or current measurement device.

    • For more information on the Entek XM Series, please contact the Rockwell Automation Response Center, 10701 Hampshire Avenue South, Bloomington, Minn., 55438, 800.223.5354, Ext. 1645.