Jan 22 2013
Pinnacle Renewable Energy Group www.pinnaclepellet.com has ordered a “Wireless Industrial Heat Detection System” from SST Wireless Inc. for all 6 production facilities throughout Western Canada. The milestone order came after a successful pilot in their Armstrong pellet mill. The wireless transmitters are being used to detect changes in temperature directly in the bearing shafts used in the milling process.
The primary reason is for safety. By measuring and detecting overheating it is designed to alert plant personnel and avoid a potentially disastrous fire. Secondly, the plant manager uses the system as a production tool, by reducing maintenance downtime. Pinnacle expects to improve production efficiency and profitability, with a direct pay back of the investment within one year.
There are limited options to use a wireless solution that resides directly in the milling equipment to monitor the temperature and pressure of parts moving at high rpms such as a bearing shaft, while withstanding that harsh industrial operating environment.
"SST Wireless sensors allow us to continuously monitor the temperature of our critical production equipment," said Jamie Collis, plant manager at Pinnacle. "If we detect a significant change in temperature, maintenance can be scheduled before the problem leads to an unplanned shutdown or damage to the plant."
“The installed sensors transmit data wirelessly to the server where SST’s indicative maintenance software is used to manage and monitor the network. With an established wireless network at the plant, 'plug-and-play' technology meant that it was convenient for SST engineers to quickly install and configure the new wireless devices,” said Graham Schnare, SST’s head of Product Development.
Despite the harsh environment of the mill equipment, which is surrounded by metal structures that can obstruct wireless signals, the wireless network was quickly established utilizing unlicensed bands. The pilot system has been operating for more than 9 months and during that time the transmissions between transmitters and the wireless gateway have been reliable and useful.