INTONIX ACOUSTIC MACHINERY MONITOR Intonix Corporation is a Minnesota company which designs and manufactures products for non-contact acoustical monitoring of rotating machinery, non-rotating equipment, and processes. The Acoustic Machinery Monitor is a unique patented product (U.S. Patent 6,507,790) with no direct competitor.  The monitor operates using sound, and not direct vibration measurement, it can monitor both rotating and non-rotating equipment such as absorption chillers, boilers and combustion processes, electrical transformers and switchgear, as well as flow processes.  It can detect electrical arcing, as well as escaping fluids, such as air, water, steam, or natural gas.  It can monitor equipment within a zone, not just a single component.  It is perfect for monitoring critical equipment or processes in remote, inaccessible, or dangerous locations.  It even has safety and security applications. For as long as mankind has been building machinery, human operators have used sound as an indicator of machinery condition.  In your everyday life, you use sound to verify that things are working properly.  For example, if there is a problem with your vehicle, your lawnmower, or your dishwasher, the sound, or more precisely, the change in sound is probably the first thing you notice.  Like a human operator or observer, the Acoustic Machinery Monitor has the ability to learn what a machine or process sounds like during normal operation.  Machinery protection is provided by continuously comparing the monitored sound with the sound that was learned when the machine or process was known to be operating properly.  Do not confuse the Acoustic Machinery Monitor with a sound level meter.  A sound level meter is a broadband device; it measures the combined effect of all the frequency components in a signal and displays the result as a single number, the sound pressure level (SPL) in decibels.  However, the Acoustic Machinery Monitor uses digital signal processing (DSP) technology to continuously compute the power spectrum or frequency content of an acoustic signal. Essentially, the Acoustic Machinery Monitor is a real-time digital filter analyser with switch-configurable characteristics, relay outputs, non-volatile memory, and a "learn mode".  It continuously computes the power spectrum of an acoustic signal by performing 1/12th octave bandpass filtering over an eight octave range, computing the acoustic power output, in decibels, of each of the resulting 96 bandpass filters.  Thus, it has the computational power of a laboratory dynamic signal analyser, but at a much lower cost.  It has two modes of operation: LEARN and OPERATE.  The monitor is placed in learn mode during a time when the machine or process to be monitored is known to be operating normally.  During this time, the monitor records the power spectrum of the signal in non-volatile memory as the acoustic signature of the machine or process.  During operate mode, the real-time power spectrum is continuously compared with the stored acoustic signature.  There are two alarm levels, warning and danger, which have adjustable sensitivity, set by front-panel switches.  The time constant of the digital filters is also adjustable, allowing a fast alarm response, triggered by sudden changes in the power spectrum, or a more damped response, to detect gradual power spectrum changes.  The monitor is always in one of four possible states: DANGER, WARNING, OKAY, or NOT READY, as indicated by front-panel lamps and communicated to external devices or annunciators by relay contacts, including an extra set of DANGER contacts which can be used to automatically shut down a machine which is malfunctioning.  The monitor also has a graphical data viewing feature which allows the real-time power spectrum and the stored acoustic signatures to be displayed on an ordinary oscilloscope, just as they would appear on a dynamic signal analyser.  Storing the acoustic signatures in non-volatile memory allows for a graceful recovery from AC power interruptions, even during learn mode.  The Acoustic Machinery Monitor is designed for use by plant personnel and features user-friendly controls and operation. The Acoustic Machinery Monitor consists of two components: the Model 527 Control Unit, and the Type M1 Industrial Microphone.  The control unit is typically mounted on a DIN rail inside an electrical enclosure, while the microphone is mounted close to the equipment which is to be monitored.  The control unit and microphone are connected by a cable, which may be up to a half-mile in length.  The Type M1 Industrial Microphone employs a dustproof, waterproof electret condenser microphone, along with signal conditioning circuitry, packaged in a polycarbonate NEMA 4X enclosure and mounted on a stainless steel universal shock-mount bracket.  This heavy-duty microphone is designed for use in electrically noisy industrial environments, and has outstanding immunity to electromagnetic interference.  It has been successfully used in close proximity to large generators, motors, and switchgear. The Acoustic Machinery Monitor will operate reliably and safely at 240 volts, 50 Hertz.   Underwriters Laboratories have tested the control unit at 50 Hertz and it is listed for use in the U.S. and Canada under UL 508, Safety Standard for Industrial Control Equipment, and complies with part 15 of the FCC Rules for a class A device, covering both conducted and radiated emissions.  However, it is NOT approved as Intrinsically Safe, for use in hazardous (explosive) locations.  The same is true of the Type M1 Industrial Microphone itself, as well as the Smart Microphone, even though they use low voltage, rather than line voltage.  The Type SM-1 Smart Microphone uses the same digital signal processing as the Model 527 Acoustic Machinery Monitor, except that there is no DIN rail-mounted control unit.  The Smart Microphones use distributed signal processing and are daisy-chained together on an RS-485 transmission line, connected to a power supply and a remote server.  Each Smart Microphone continuously computes the power spectrum of the acoustic signal, and this data is available to the user in digital form.  You can use one Smart Microphone, or there can be up to 31 Smart Microphones, each with its own address, on each RS-485 transmission line.  Compared with the Acoustic Machinery Monitor, this system is more economical for multi-point monitoring because there is less hardware.  The remote server uses Ethernet to communicate with a PC running our proprietary application software, which controls the Smart Microphones, displays the real-time power spectrum or stored signatures, and generates alarms.  It is also possible to communicate directly with the Smart Microphones, using RS-485, or through a remote server or Ethernet adapter to the customer's network, without using our PC-based application software at all.  You can write your own software and run it on a PLC or PC to produce an analogue current or voltage proportional to the total acoustic power in any combination of the 96 filter bands used by the Smart Microphone.  For the Acoustic Machinery Monitor, you must use all 96 bands; you cannot weight them or choose which ones you want to use.  There is still some development work and testing which needs to be completed before the SM-1 Smart Microphone is ready for sale.  On the other hand, the Acoustic Machinery Monitor, including Type M1 Industrial Microphone, is in stock, available for immediate shipment.  Please obtain current pricing from Norman G. Clark (A/Asia) Pty. Ltd.