Baler with bearing health monitor
AssigneeDeere & Company
InventorsNolan D. Eakins, Bart A. Coffman
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A baler including an accelerometer coupled to the frame and configured to output a bulk signal representative of the total vibrational power in the frame, and a controller in operable communication with the accelerometer, where the controller is configured to deconstruct the bulk output signal provided by the accelerometer into at least a first component signal and a second component signal, and where the controller is configured to associate one of the first component signal and the second component signal with a first bearing and the other of the first component signal and the second component signal with a second bearing.
Claims18
A baler comprising:
- a frame;
- one or more wheels rotatably mounted to the frame;
- a bale forming system including:
- a first rotational element rotatably coupled to the frame by a first bearing for rotation about a first axis, wherein the first bearing is a first bearing type,
- a second rotational element rotatably coupled to the frame by a second bearing for rotation about a second axis, wherein the second bearing is a second bearing type different than the first bearing type,
- a third rotational element rotatably coupled to the frame by a third bearing for rotation about a third axis that is parallel to the first axis, wherein the third bearing is the first bearing type, and
- a fourth rotational element rotatably coupled to the frame by a fourth bearing for rotation about a fourth axis that is parallel to the second axis, wherein the fourth bearing is the second bearing type;
- and
- an accelerometer coupled to the frame and configured to output a bulk signal representative of a total vibrational power in the frame;
- and
- a controller in operable communication with the accelerometer, where the controller is configured to deconstruct the bulk output signal provided by the accelerometer into at least a first component signal and a second component signal, and wherein the controller is configured to associate the first component signal with a first bearing group including the first bearing and the third bearing, and wherein the controller is configured to associate the second component signal with a second bearing group including the second bearing and the fourth bearing.
A method of monitoring a health of a a first bearing group and a second bearing group in a baler having a frame and an accelerometer fixedly coupled to the frame, wherein the first bearing group includes at least two rotational elements of a first bearing type, and wherein the second bearing group includes at least two rotational elements of a second bearing type different than the first bearing type, the method comprising:
- outputting a bulk signal representative of a vibrational power within the frame;
- deconstructing the bulk signal into a first component signal and a second component signal;
- associating the first component signal with the first bearing group;
- associating the second component signal with the second bearing group;
- comparing the first component signal to a first set of operational parameters;
- comparing the second component signal to a second set of operational parameters;
- and
- outputting an alert if at least one of the first component signal falls outside the first set of operational parameters and the second component signal falls outside the second set of operational parameters.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.