"The Ultraprobe has been useful in many areas of maintenance. For example, we have many hundreds of instrument loops using compressed air to control valves and actuators. If the performance is not as expected, it is easy with the Ultraprobe to scan around to see if there are any air leaks.
We then follow the air line back to the local instrument junction box checking for leaks. Easy without an Ultraprobe, you might say, but we are working in a very noisy environment where ear defenders are mandatory. The Ultraprobe picks out even minute leaks that could be affecting the performance of the control loop.
We also routinely use the Ultraprobe to 'sound out' fan bearings, which can't be accessed in any other way. We have a large number of AC and DC variable speed drives, all of which have fans for cooling purposes. Most of these fans are inaccessible for normal condition monitoring - both from an electrical safety point of view, and because their construction is such that you can't get to the bearings using 'contact' vibration monitoring equipment.
So, what do we do? Well, we just scan with the Ultraprobe and listen. We have no 'quantitative' value where we know they are going to fail, but experience tells us when it is time to change them. Our downtime due to fan failures has dropped dramatically since we started using the equipment.
Okay, we may have changed some bearings prematurely, but the loss of just one small fan can result in quite a substantial loss of production, possibly resulting in late deliveries to the customer."
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