I'm investigating methods to confirm NVH in ball bearings, and I repeatedly lead myself back to anderometers.
Anderometers basically apply opposing axial loads on bearing inner & outer races to exacerbate imperfections, rotate the inner race (typically @ 1,800 rpm), and then use a velocity sensor applied to the stationary outer race to detect vibration that would lead to noise.
The only problem is that the cheapest anderometer I've found costs 6-figures, and I'm looking for a solution closer to a 4-figure budget.
I'm very much a n00b when it comes to electronics; the most I've done is just built my own PC, so keep expectations low.
Are there Arduino compatible linear (no angular) velocity sensors?
I'd like to have an adjustable pass/fail threshold with a simple visual indicator (ie. red light = bad, green light = good) for bad & good bearings, so if I have a bad bearing that this system would have passed, I can adjust this pass/fail threshold accordingly; if the system can maintain the "bad bearing red light" if one occurs until the test is reset, this would be even better.
Is this project feasible using the Arduino platform?
Whatever other guidance you can give me, I'll take it.
This is in the realms of Machine Condition Monitoring.
I supposed you can use an accelerometer as a vibration sensor in one axis. You sample the data as fast as you can, save it to SRAM, do some FFT to convert raw accelerometer data into the frequency domain.
From my basic understanding of MCM, a one bad bearing would cause an oscillation in some frequency related to the RPM, two bad bearings would behave differently but still oscillate relative to the RPM.
You might want to use the more powerful CPUs (teensy 4.1 or equivalent) due to the floating point Math involved.
aarg:
The 10 top clues that suggest that a poster will be hard to help:
... #8 - wants to make a normally expensive thing "for cheap"
...
Yeah, this is partially one of those instances where someone well above me said somebody else used an Arduino to do something only slightly similar, so it should be completely applicable to my application...
#8 - wants to make a normally expensive thing "for cheap"
Is "8" close to the top of your list, or the bottom?
@OP: since you are talking six figure cost savings, consider posting on the Gigs and Collaborations forum section, and offer generous pay for the help!