“Happy wife, Happy life.”
“An apple a day keeps the doctor away.”
Hey, here’s a few you may not have heard:
What? You haven’t heard the second two sayings? While they may not be on the tip of your tongue yet, they are certainly as true as the first two more well-known clichés.
Cheesy clichés aside, a vibration shaker system is a huge investment and it requires a certain level of preventative maintenance (“PM”). The good news is that with consistent PM practices your equipment should be shaking for decades.
A Journey of a Thousand Miles Begins With a Single Step
A good PM starting place is taking a baseline measurement upon delivery of your system. The easiest way to do this is using some type of signal generator or oscilloscope. Many controllers on the market today include these functions in a single package --such as VibrationView System Check -- making the process fast and easy. Your initial recording should be used as a benchmark and compared against all future recordings.
Practice Makes Perfect/Better Safe Than Sorry
The test used for the baseline recording, regardless of whether it is a 30 Hz dwell, Sine sweep, or something else, should be used each time subsequent recordings are done. This way, technicians are comparing apples to apples and any change can be easily observed.
There is no general rule on how often this test should be run. It is up to each company to make this determination but multiple factors should be considered such as: the operating environment, workload, and industry regulations. I’ve seen companies run the PM procedure at varying intervals including at 6 months, 3 months, and even every month. We recommend that the procedure is completed a minimum of one time per year.
If a new recording differs from the baseline, you may have a possible maintenance issue. The following are some scenarios that you might encounter:
- The test now requires more voltage to run (amplifier issue?)
- A system resonance has shifted (flexure fatiguing?)
- Noise is present in the sine tone (loose bolt?)
- The noise floor is increasing (loose connection?)
It’s best if these issues are caught early as they can be addressed and repaired before they lead to bigger maintenance headaches down the road.
Don’t Put Off Tomorrow What You Could Do Today
Other PM procedures you should consider doing regularly include: calibrating any equipment that is used with the system; disassembling the shaker assembly and cleaning each part before putting it back together; and checking and replacing filters. The frequency (pun intended) of performing each task will largely depend on the shaker’s operating environment as noted above.
Even with proper PM practices, certain repairs will unfortunately always be necessary. A shaker is a mechanical system and parts will fatigue, components will need to be replaced, and armatures will need to be re-wound. Who can you call when assistance is needed above and beyond your in-house PM capabilities? Download VR’s Guide to Shaker Repair and Maintenance Companies to find out more.
