Wirelessly monitor the health of your motor, pump or fan with the ABB Ability Smart Sensor
The Future is Here! Flow Tech has been talking with many of our manufacturers recently about the future of HVAC and what it might look like. In a previous FITK newsletter you saw a link to a video where our very own Andrew Marques and ABB’s James Chalmers met in the Metaverse at a virtual wastewater treatment plant in front of ABB drives. No other company is embracing the future of technology more than ABB.
Up until recently, remote monitoring of low voltage motors (and other rotating equipment) was considered expensive and difficult to execute. Not only would you need to hard wire some sort of sensor on a piece of rotating equipment, taking up valuable space (and money) in a local controller, there were other issues to consider including how to get the wiring to the controller, labor, safety, etc. ABB AbilityTM is changing all of that with their Smart Sensor. The Smart Sensor converts traditional motors into smart, wirelessly connected devices. It enables users to monitor the health of their motors and to plan maintenance in advance. How?
The smart sensor easily attaches to an existing motor (mechanically or via epoxy, and when I say easy…two FT sales guys installed one in our demo lab!) and wirelessly connect via Bluetooth to your cell phone (for manual downloads) or to a wireless gateway (for automatic downloads). The data is uploaded to an ABB cloud service where Flow Tech and/or the end user can monitor their motor, fan, pump, bearing for vibration, skin temperature, speed, etc. and set alarms for the health of their equipment. That critical motor your constantly worried about failing in the middle of surgery, in the height of summer? We can tell you months before it’s about to fail because it’s running hot, or the bearings are shot, or…
We will soon have two ABB AbilityTM Smart Sensors installed in our Demo Lab. Come check them out and learn more about how they might add value to your facilities. If you can’t make it to the Demo Lab anytime soon, take a look at the below video discussing the Smart Sensor in greater detail!
A sneak peak into future FITK newsletters, this technology is going to expand! Not only will we have connected sensors on rotating equipment, but connected VFD keypads that Flow Tech technicians can remotely log into to help troubleshoot. Eventually we could visit your facility virtually through VR and see how your VFD and motor are interacting with the environment around it. A lot of exciting developments in 2023 and beyond, and Flow Tech and ABB will be at the forefront of all of it with you. For these reasons, the ABB AbilityTM smart sensor is our pick of the quarter!
We are happy to supply you with ABB motors, VFDs and/or the AbilityTM Smart Sensor as a package or individually. Please contact us for more information about our ABB offerings or give us a call, 860.291.8886. Check out our website to learn more about our HVAC equipment and controls systems. To stay up-to-date on Flow Tech happenings be sure to follow us on social media: Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube.
Michael O. Davis, PE is President of Flow Tech, Inc. In addition to leading the day-to-day operations and vision of the company, Michael manages and coaches our outside sales engineering department. Prior to his leadership role he was responsible for selling some of Flow Tech’s more technically complex systems in our territory covering Connecticut and parts of Massachusetts and New York. He specializes in custom air handling applications and air-to-air heat recovery exchangers.
Michael is a 2010 graduate from the University of Connecticut with a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering. He currently resides in South Glastonbury, CT with this wife and two children.