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Pump vibration monitoring at PCB manufacturing

*The client is under NDA

Introduction

Printed circuit boards (PCB) are widely used in household appliances, communication equipment, computer engineering, and automation systems. Electronic devices based on PCB are also successfully used in the medical sphere, automotive industry, and other areas of industrial electronics, such as aviation, shipbuilding, and aerospace.

The technological process of PCB manufacturing is extremely complicated and includes up to 50 operations. It requires a huge production area with 40-50 items of production equipment, which in turn must be constantly controlled and maintained by the qualified personnel.

The production lines operate 24/7. Periodic maintenance with a full stop of a line is planned and scheduled months in advance. In case some of the essential equipment fails during the manufacturing process, the whole production line stops running, and the manufacturer suffers heavy financial losses.

01

Challenge

The challenge lay in automating the vibration monitoring of pumps used in the technological process of PCB manufacturing. The purpose of the project was to optimize the routine check-ups of vibration level in the pumps and ensure an uninterrupted operation of the production lines.

A special difficulty and responsibility of the task were represented by the importance of the pump role in the technological process. A pump malfunction caused violation of the production technology, and the whole batch of the produced PCBs was disposed as defective.

When a malfunction occurred, the internal parts of the pump started hitting each other, thus causing their destruction and abnormal vibration. So the increased level of vibration was considered as the primary indicator of the pump breakdown.
The pump operating control was performed manually by the personnel, who visually examined all the pumps and assessed the vibration level. Then the check-up information was added to a spreadsheet file, which helped compare the current vibration level with the previous one and define a malfunction.
The Prylada team accepted the challenge to automate vibration measurement and thus enable remote 24/7 monitoring of the pump condition. A real-time and accurate control would also help define a malfunction at an early stage and timely replace the pump, without loss of produced PCBs.

The customer also remarked high importance of visual consistency of the control results. Vibration reports should have been presented in the form of charts, the way they had been maintained previously. That approach would allow the customer to avoid interrupting the operational processes and retraining the personnel.

02

Why the client chose our vibration monitoring system

On-premises deployment option

Short timeframe

Reasonable price

Out-of-the-box solution

Hardware and software customization

03

Solution

The Prylada team carefully studied the specifications of the customer’s assets and started to develop a digitalization concept. As the existing control had been fully manual, the solution was aimed to cover the whole process of data transfer from the pumps to a remote control panel. It required a gateway, which would aggregate vibration data from the customer’s sensors and send it to an on-premises server via Ethernet. The team only spent 2 weeks to figure out a tailored solution for this project.

To implement the concept, the Prylada team designed a new type of extension board, which allowed connecting the customer’s sensors to the Prylada gateway. The development of extension board took no longer than 4 weeks. At that, one gateway could be equipped with 8 expansion boards to provide 56 inputs for similar sensors.
Pump vibration monitoring at PCB manufacturing

First, the Probeberry gateway aggregates accurate vibration data from the sensors embedded with the pumps.

Later, the aggregated data is transported via Ethernet to the Prylada on-premises server, which runs in the customer’s local network.

Prylada also provides a user interface to display the vibration data in an intuitive dashboard.

A specific type of the customer’s sensors might have become a serious bottleneck for the processing of vibration data. However, the team developed an additional adapter to convert the raw data into the gateway-readable format. The Probeberry module, which had Ethernet communication capabilities, was selected and adjusted to perform the function of a gateway.

Another month the team dedicated to assembling the components into a single solution and making the necessary configuration. The suggested operating principle was based on several consecutive steps.
Pump vibration monitoring at PCB manufacturing
The Prylada user interface has wide customization capabilities and allows configuring any kind of widgets. For this project, the Prylada team preserved the continuity with the manual reports and configured a dashboard to present the vibration data in the chart view.

Therefore, the customer was offered an inclusive out-of-the box solution consisting of fully customized modules.

The final delivery kit included:

  • 14 Ethernet gateways
  • On-premises server
  • User interface
The solution is intended to cover 5 production lines and opens up new opportunities for the factory digitalization, in addition to labor and financial cost reduction. With the provided system, data from throughout the factory can be transported and processed through advanced digital technologies, which may lead to fundamental changes in the business processes. For example, the manufacturer can now seamlessly scale the monitoring system and receive extended telemetry for post analysis by connecting more sensors.

04

Current status of the project

The solution was successfully implemented in the customer's PCB manufacturing facilities in March 2023.

05

Benefits of the implemented monitoring system

Assistance from start to finish

Our team stay in close contact with the customer during the whole project, from defining the main goal and throughout the system installation in the factory. While most of the installation work can only be performed by the authorized personnel from the customer’s side, our representatives are entrusted to install the on-premises server and run the functional tests on-site.

On-premises deployment

The designed solution allows storing the received data and maintaining the hardware in-house. To have more control over security, performance, data, and access, the majority of production facilities use a local network. The Prylada can equally provide solutions for both cloud and on-premises deployment.

Full customization

The Prylada team considered multiple factors to figure out the best suitable solution, which would create additional value to the customer’s business by optimizing the PCB manufacturing processes. All the components, from sensors to user interface, are tailored to fulfill the defined needs.

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06

FAQ

What is vibration monitoring?
How does vibration monitoring work?
What will vibration monitoring detect?
What are the most common machinery problems that cause vibration?