Prime mover mountable hydraulic tool and related monitoring systems and methods

A system comprising:

• a data acquisition module configured to acquire a time series data regarding bore pressure and rod pressure from sensors monitoring a hydraulic cylinder operating a jaw or blade associated with a machine;
• a data processing module configured to:
• divide the time series data into a plurality of windows of a predetermined duration;
• identify times at which bore pressure and rod pressure peak in the windows;
• and
• determine durations between successive pairs of bore pressure peaks and rod pressure peaks, wherein in each pair, a rod pressure peak follows a bore pressure peak;
• and
• a jam detection module configured to:
• detect a jamming of the jaw or blade in response to one of the durations being less than or equal to a predetermined threshold;
• and
• detect a probability of the jaw or blade jamming in response to the durations between the successive pairs of bore pressure peaks and rod pressure peaks decreasing with time.

A system comprising:

• a prime mover mountable hydraulic tool comprising a hydraulic cylinder configured to operate a jaw or blade associated with the prime mover mountable hydraulic tool;
• and
• a protective box assembly mounted to a mounting wall of the prime mover mountable hydraulic tool, the protective box assembly housing:
• sensors configured to sense a bore-side pressure and a rod-side pressure of the hydraulic cylinder;
• a control circuit;
• and
• a wireless transmitter antenna providing a communication channel to a user interface independent of any communication channel provided by the prime mover;
• wherein the control circuit comprises:
• a processor configured to:
• sample the bore-side pressure and the rod-side pressure sensed by the sensors multiple times during a first stall test and a second stall test performed by the hydraulic cylinder at a first time and a second time, respectively;
• and
• detect an abnormality associated with the hydraulic cylinder based on the samples;
• and
• a transmitter configured to transmit an indication of the detected abnormality to a remote computing device.

A system comprising:

• a receiver configured to receive data from a hydraulic tool located remotely from the receiver, the data including a bore-side pressure and a rod-side pressure of a hydraulic cylinder associated with the hydraulic tool and collected during a first stall test and a second stall test performed by the hydraulic cylinder at a first time and a second time, respectively;
• and
• a processor configured to:
• determine first baseline values of the bore-side pressure and the rod-side pressure based on the data collected during the first stall test;
• determine second baseline values of the bore-side pressure and the rod-side pressure based on the data collected during the second stall test;
• and
• detect an abnormality associated with the hydraulic cylinder based on the first baseline values and the second baseline values.

A system comprising:

• a prime mover mountable hydraulic tool comprising a hydraulic cylinder configured to operate a jaw or blade associated with the prime mover mountable hydraulic tool;
• and
• a protective box assembly mounted to a mounting wall of the prime mover mountable hydraulic tool, the protective box assembly housing:
• sensors configured to sense a bore-side pressure and a rod-side pressure of the hydraulic cylinder;
• a control circuit;
• and
• a wireless transmitter antenna providing a communication channel to a user interface independent of any communication channel provided by the prime mover;
• wherein the control circuit comprises:
• a data acquisition module configured to acquire a time series data of the bore-side pressure and the rod-side pressure from the sensors;
• a data processing module configured to:
• divide the time series data into a plurality of windows of a predetermined duration;
• identify times at which the bore-side pressure and the rod-side pressure peak in the windows;
• and
• determine durations between successive pairs of bore-side pressure peaks and rod-side pressure peaks, wherein in each pair, a rod-side pressure peak follows a bore-side pressure peak;
• and
• a jam detection module configured to:
• detect a jamming of the jaw or blade in response to one of the durations being less than or equal to a predetermined threshold;
• and
• detect a probability of the jaw or blade jamming in response to the durations between the successive pairs of bore-side pressure peaks and rod-side pressure peaks decreasing with time;
• and
• wherein the wireless transmitter antenna transmits an indication of the jamming of the jaw or blade or the probability of the blade jamming to the user interface.