If you're a machine builder with hundreds of machines in the field, then failures are the thing you dread most. You know you need Predictive Maintenance for machines that you maintain and repair, but the cost is prohibitive. Ever wished for a retrofit solution? Well, sensorEDGE is your answer. It's an edge device that continuously measures a machine's critical parameters and sends the sensor data to the cloud. Configuration is automatic and Hilscher bundles a ready-made cloud subscription to let you get on-line in minutes. An API enables data from machines located anywhere in the world to be monitored centrally using your choice of software.
The Challenge
Machines and processes that have been working for many years are often difficult or impossible to monitor. Failures can be frequent and breakdowns costly. For vendors with a widely distributed user-base, the maintenance challenge can be difficult. What's needed is a way to oversee everything from a central location to facilitate predictive maintenance strategies remotely. Plenty of packages exist to do this but retrofitting them can be intrusive and expensive.
With sensorEDGE, Hilscher has created a powerful yet simple answer to the most important part of this challenge: data collection from sensors fitted to machines in the field and transmitting the data to a cloud.
Smart Sensors, Stand Alone Solution
On the machine, IO-LINK sensors are fitted to monitor degradations, such as vibration changes on a motor or temperature changes of a coil.
IO-LINK is an international point-to-point connection standard for smart digital sensors. It enables remote configuration as well as the continuous transmission of measurement data. It's supported by all major sensor vendors with about 10,000 sensor types are on the market today. Virtually any monitoring requirement can be met easily with IO-LINK, at competitive prices.
The sensors are connected to a sensorEDGE IP67 "block" (pictured right). Crucially, this can all be done without interfering with any other part of the machine or its control system. In other words, sensorEDGE is a "stand-alone" solution.
The sensorEDGE block combines an IO-LINK master (for controlling the IO-LINK sensors) with an Ethernet edge gateway, through which measured data is transmitted to the cloud. No other product has this "combo" advantage, which makes for a simple, cost-effective solution.
Ready to Go, Real-Time Monitoring
Cloud connectivity is bundled with sensorEDGE, and automatically invoked once a user account has been initiated. Users lease the cloud services, with ongoing costs as little as a few dollars per month.
sensorEDGE is automatically set-up in minutes. Operating software is downloaded, and the connected sensors are scanned and configured remotely. Then, sensorEDGE starts transmitting data to the cloud at the rate of 1 measurement/second.
A browser is used for device management. The user can watch the uploaded data from any location in real-time via a dashboard that displays each data stream as a widget. Line, Gauge and Bar Chart widgets can be selected. This dashboard acts as a simple real-time monitor, allowing machine responses to be watched from any location.
The sensorEDGE package includes the Rest API, a secure cloud doorway that allows third party software to stream data from the cloud. In this way, data from hundreds of machines can be centrally monitored using relevant third-party software.