For any machine shop, the healthcare of your spindle is the lifeblood of your business. If your spindles aren’t turning, then you are not producing parts and generating revenue. With this in mind, isn’t it time you paid serious attention to the spindles that are the difference between success and failure within your business?
As one of the leading suppliers of machine tools in the UK, the Engineering Technology Group (ETG) is only too aware that optimised uptime of your spindle is of critical importance. This is why the Wellesbourne machine tool experts are now offering UK manufacturers the new B-Safe from Balance Systems.
B-Safe has been invented to expand spindle and machine tool diagnostics according to vibration and temperature analysis. The miniaturised system can be installed directly onto the spindle of your machine tool to guarantee real-time monitoring, as well as reducing the machine downtime by predicting malfunctions and potential failure. However, the ingenious system can provide so much more. Based upon fully customised solutions from ETG, the B-Safe has an overload alarm, an overheating alarm with programmable thresholds that correlate with real-time data of process monitoring. Additionally, it can create a collision alarm within 1 millisecond (ms) – i.e., 0.001 seconds – and therefore immediately stop the machine
As a company that has thousands of UK machine tool installations, ETG appreciates the concerns of the industry to protect their assets with efficient spindle monitoring. It is this customer care and full-service support philosophy that has driven ETG to introduce a complete spindle monitoring system that assesses mechanical stress and wear as well as providing a maintenance schedule for preventative maintenance planning.
The B-Safe can be easily retrofitted to virtually all machine tools and spindles, offering peace-of-mind for manufacturers as well as the productivity benefits from identifying and monitoring periods of spindle inactivity. The system consists of a B-Safe sensor with a connector or integrated cable, a UPS and TCP-IP connection device interface, a start-up kit with software and user manual, a wide range of extension cables and M5 to M12 adaptor and magnetic support that can all be fitted with simplicity.
Depending upon the requirements of the end-user, ETG can provide a multitude of options to suit every manufacturing business. For example, the B-Safe System can be configured by the customer selecting the options they want. Some of the options include an event logbook, triaxial real-time data recorder, high-frequency monoaxial data, FFT analysis, a collision waveform recorder, historical trends, spindle check-up, service notes and the Fingerprint feature that is a B-Safe application intended for condition monitoring of machine tool and machine tool spindle based on vibration analysis.
This information and much more can be viewed in the always-connected Human-Machine Interface (HMI) and the multi-platform software that provides users with full control from anywhere, thus obtaining the maximum results from your machine. The B-Safe HMI is a software platform that allows interaction with multiple sensors at the same time and is available in different languages and layouts. It can be installed on PCs or machine tool control panels that run Microsoft Windows 7, 8.x or 10.
The B-Safe HMI allows the setting of coefficients and thresholds to adapt to a large variety of applications. This includes the Spindle Check-Up function, which can monitor the real health status of your spindle and show the residual working hours based on how the machine is being used by the operator. Additionally, this data is available anywhere via the internet. All sensor data can be viewed through the B-Safe HMI in real-time or via the B-Safe Cloud APP. These interfaces allows the ability to export the information at any time so that you can manage the data with complete autonomy. The B-Safe Cloud is the online evolution of B-SafeX System, which allows you to remotely supervise all B-Safe sensors installed on your machine tools to monitor their productivity status. Through the B-Safe Cloud App, you can personalise the alerts that can be received via SMS, e-mail or push notification on smartphones.
The presence of a microprocessor with integrated memory allows local detection and memorisation of collision phenomena, unbalances, overloads, anomalies of the working cycle, tool wear and bearings diagnostics. With increased spindle utilisation and uptime, improved efficiency and monitoring as well as the facility to determine potential issues and schedule preventative maintenance, isn’t it time you took better care of your most profitable assets with the B-Safe from Balance Systems?
