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Observer version history

News Observer Version History Firmware Version History Downloads



Observer 12.1.1

 

           12.1.1    2020-06-15




Observer 12.1.0

 

           12.1.0    2020-03-20

Observer 12.0.0

 

           12.0.0    2019-10-04


Observer 11.0.0

 

           11.0.0    2019-01-01


Observer 10.5.1

 

           10.5.1    2018-09-26


Observer 10.5.0

          10.5.0    2018-06-15

 

Observer 10.2.2

 

           10.2.2    2017-12-04  


   

Observer 10.2.1

 

           10.2.1    2017-06-05  


Observer 10.1

 

           10.1.3    2016-10-03  

 

           10.1.2    2015-05-26  

  

           10.1.1    2015-04-21 


Observer 9.1

 

9.1.5    2015-06-17   

 

9.1.4    2015-02-18

 


9.1.3    2014-10-16

 

9.1.2    2014-08-25

OTD#2310. Exclude from diagnosis string was not long enough in specific languages.

 

9.1.1    2014-05-16

 

 

Observer 9.0

 

9.0.7    2014-03-11

 

 

9.0.6    2013-10-01   

 

9.0.5    2013-09-06   

 

9.0.4    2013-06-11   

 

9.0.3    2013-05-23   


 

9.0.2    2013-04-24   


 

9.0.1    2013-02-08   


  9.0.0    2012-12-21

 

Major new features

 

 

Built-in OPC Server

 

Monitor service now has a built-in OPC Server. When this built-in OPC server is enabled, it automatically publishes all on-line measurement points over the OPC UA protocol. This means that third-party OPC Server software is no longer required to be purchased.

 

Machine Diagnostics

 

The intelligent diagnostics in SKF @ptitude Observer have been made smarter and moved from measurement point level to the machine level. Additionally there are new alarm strategies available for the diagnostics.

 

Event case reporting

 

Event cases can be created in the SKF @ptitude Observer system in order to keep track and document reports, information and history regarding a specific event tied to a specific machine.

 

Node tagging

 

The machines and measurement points can be tagged with user customized information such as failure modes or managements tags. This is an extremely powerful tool to help manage everyday tasks.

 

 

Minor new features

 

 

Installation

 

-         When creating a new database it is no longer a need to manually browse for a bearing file.

-         It is now possible to have the SKF @ptitude Observer software remember the user name and password for easier log in.

-         User configured databases instead of common configuration for the complete software installation.

-         It is now possible to share information within the on-line repository to a certain pre-set group.

-         Visibility of the software serial number for easier communication with Customer Support and Technical Support.

-         User based storage location for .ini files and .con files.

 

Graphs

 

-         Changing reference spectra now requires confirmation.

-         Major enhancements made to Multi-trend plot.

-         DiagX wizard has been enhanced.

-         Runout compensation has been added.

-         Visibility of the speed value in the Orbit plot.

-         Planet shaft visibility in the Gear Inspector and Profile plots.

-         Visibility of the speed of the Order analysis shaft as well as the tacho speed in the FFT graph.

-         Improved Gear Inspector calculations.

-         Possibility to invert the scale in the 3D plot.

-         Additional scale options (0.0005, 0.0002 and 0.0001) has been added to the graphs.

-         The Orbit graph has been enhanced with several features.

-         Improvements to the Trend plot cursor functionality when using speed or process values as the x-axis.

 

Configuration

 

-         Removal of TBU Temp option.

-         User specified option to enable/disable Automatic alarms for new measurement points.

-         It is now possible to create a new machine template with a simple right hand click on the machine.

-         It is now possible to export and import diagnosis rules.

-         Changed default BPS (19200) for Modbus.

-         Zoom function in machine parts.

-         Speed setting of a measurement within the FFT window.

-         Removal of Order Shaft for Time Waveform points

 

Other

 

-         It is now possible to register Event cases and conduct them into the incident reporting.

-         It is now possible to set customized tags to machines and measurement POINTs.

-         Expandable system log, making the description reading of large configuration changes easier.

-         Clear visibility of the time zone’s date and time for all time stamps throughout the application.

-         Possibility to roll out customized firmware to selected IMx devices instead of to the entire fleet of IMx devices.

-         Enhanced Counter measurement POINT to include the possibility to count machine stops or distance instead of only pulses.

-         Enhanced List views throughout the application.

-         Encrypted Data miner views.

-         SKF @ptitude Observer will automatically inform about device disconnection when requesting live values.

-         It is now possible to use filters within the Event log, and refresh the data without closing the window.

 

Technologies

 

-         New frequency finder calculation method for diagnosis.

-         Major rework of diagnosis.

-         Support for Built-in OPC Server.

-         Support for IMx-C.

-         It is now possible to Test-bench monitor via the new feature "Conditional Activation".

-         Peak counter functionality has been added as a diagnose type.

 -         Implementation of a new Dashboard tool to gather useful information for the user.

 

Observer 8.5

 

8.5.7    2012-09-25   

-         The process overview did on some occasions not draw all the icons correctly and in the correct position

-         Microlog coded notes were sometimes not stored correctly when uploading into Observer

-         When uploading historical data from Microlog the data was wrongly stored and could not be viewed.

-         4-20mA out was not possible to select for Shaft Centerline Measurement Points.

-         Alarm hysteresis for Diagnosis did not work correctly.

-         Importing corrupt export files causes the Observer system to raise an exception.

-         The Process picture always scaled to 1 even if the value and alarm level is higher than that.

-         Multiple fixes for Shaft Centerline points was addressed in the Point Properties form and in the Trend graph.

-         Setting a time on a IMx Unit that was not connected caused the monitor service to raise an exception.

-         Deleting machines when using Oracle database engine sometimes caused the Observer to raise an exception.

 

 

8.5.6    2012-06-28  

-         When restoring a database using database administrator on another machine other than local and the default instance of SQL Server, caused an error.

-         If the IMx unit window was opened directly after creating a link to a new database, an error would be raised if the TCP/IP socked did not have time to initialize.

-         Using the “Zero-out” calculation on a diagnose could affect measurements on other diagnosis as well.

-         When attaching a diagnose block with speed following sideband the selection of shaft for the sideband is not stored.

-         Some derived point formulas could raise the “Error in formula” error message even though the syntax for the formula was correct.

-         New alarms in Observer could in some rare occasions lead to error “Object not set to an instance of an object”.

-         Some issues with uploading Non-route measurements with Microlog has been resolved as well as a problem with GX75 and AX if the point was configured to measure time waveform and FFT

 

 

8.5.5    2012-03-28   

-          Sorting for speed and process values was not handled correctly when clicking columnheader, since the field contains also the delta of the reading

-           Constants used in the calculation of derived points was sometimes handled incorrectly.

-           The diagnostics calculation sometimes caused ‘Object not set to an instance of an Object’ exception because of faulty measurement configuration

-           Uploading data to the Microlog could under some circumstances cause an exception.

-           A problem with Service patch 8.5.4 caused browsing of OPC nodes not possible.

-           Editing database connections (.Con) files and changing the name of the connection would cause double connection files to be created.

-           If units with bad TCP/IP connections would connect to the monitor service this could sometimes cause the service to be unavailable for a long period of time

-           For Microlog points the inactive status was not reset when enabling and disabling the point.

 

 

8.5.4    2012-03-02   

-           It is now possible to select SKF Enveloping 4 for IMx Envelope measurement points. This requires minimum IMx Firmware 0.972.

-           Drag and drop for copying hierarchy nodes has been disabled because it caused misinformation between nodes. Copy and paste method should be used instead.

-           An arithmetic overflow exception in the data miner query editor could occur if entering an incorrect SQL Query.

-           In the Machine copy wizard, Torsion measurement point’s trigger channel setting was not copied to the new machine correctly.

-           The monitor service did not restart correctly when the connection to the database was lost due to a timeout error.

-           The monitor service could after a while of running become unreachable from Observer and from the Monitor service viewer.

-           The label for the print out for machine data’s machine name was incorrect and referred to the machine code instead of the machine name.

-           The dialog for resetting automatic alarm levels ignored if the user had checked the automatic recalculation of trend values.

-           Disabling measurement points had no effect on whether or not the measurement point was downloaded to the Microlog or not.

-           Using more than 3 axis in the data miner caused the fourth axis to be drawn inside the graph rather than outside the graph.

-           Disabling a series in the data miner view did not hide the axis it was using.

-           Having no item selected in the data miner view list and clicking the previous button in the navigator toolbar caused an Index out of range exception.

 

  

8.5.3    2012-01-09  

-           Multiple point update wizard for Time Waveform measurement point type was unable to change alarm levels.

-           Live values in Process Overview for configured workspaces was not updated correctly.

-           Under some circumstances a "Null" reference exception could be shown when doing printout of a route for Microlog.

-           Editing derived point parameters sometimes lost the type information.

-           The Global Sharing Community has been updated and now been renamed to SKF Online Repository.

  

 

8.5.2    2011-11-28 

-           Maintenance planner shows the number of hours instead the number of days in one column when listing maintenance tasks.

-           Performance of list views in the application was very slow due to a sorting problem.

-           Monitor manager included the build number when displaying the version information in the list of services. This caused a version mismatch when upgrading to service patch 8.5.1

-           User defined scale values in the Y-scale in the multi-trend plot were never used.

-           The query editor for the data miner views hangs the application if an incorrect syntax was used in the SQL Query.

-           Parameters in the query editor was not deleted correctly when the delete button was pressed.

-           Measurement date picker did not scale properly when using windows with custom scaling on the fonts.

-           Multiple plots with simultaneous live values could over time cause cross-thread exceptions which would cause the monitor service to crash and reboot.

-           Serial number for MasCon16 units never gets cleared by clicking the "Clear" button on the MasCon16 edit form.

-           Gearview measurement point only allowed up to 3 simultaneous channels when up to 6 should be possible.

-           When forcing a connection to a IMx/MasCon16 unit it sometimes resulted in "Package error" error message in the monitor service and the service would crash and restart.

-           Event log now only visible for the type of hardware it is supposed to be visible for.

-           Saving report templates could result in a run time error.

-           Emails sent by the monitor service with the format "Plain" omitted the type of alarm and was never visible for the user that received the email.

-           Linking the notes windows sometime crashed the application.

-           An error in the curve fit calculation caused the curve fit to plot incorrectly.

-           Sometimes the band marker in the Spectrum plot got stuck and could not be moved.

-           Browsing for OPC Servers on other computers other than the local computer where the monitor computer resides resulted in that no OPC Servers were found.

  

 

8.5.1    2011-10-28   

-           Multi trend crashed if un-checking all different engineering units to display.

-           GSC Updates were never installed even though the software said they were installed.

-           Observer crashed when downloading Microlog envelope measurement points with an end frequency value bigger than 32768.

-           Mails that where configured to use SMTP authentication failed to send to the recipients.

-           User preferences with date parameters was not possible to save on some DBCS systems.

-           Fault frequencies were not visible for Microlog points in the Spectra / Time waveform combination plot.

-           Switching between notes did not update the hyperlink if the next note did not have an hyperlink associated with the note.

-           Monitor service crashed continuously when receiving a certain type of invalid data from hardware devices.

 

8.5.0    2011-09-13   

 

            Monitor changes

-           Complete new monitor service.

-           New application "Monitor manager" is used to configure and set up monitor services on the local computer.  

-           Monitor does now run as a service only, and not as application.

-           Monitor can now run several instances of the monitor service on the same computer simultaneously.

-           The monitor service no longer requires an .ini file with settings entered manually, these settings are now configured from Observer and stored in the database.

-           The monitor application now only uses one port (default 1000) both for connections from Observer and devices.

-           The monitor service events are now be categorized in "Received", "Send", "Internal", "Error", "Unrecoverable error", "Stored", "Socket Event" and "Run Time Error".

-           "Reboot on error" has been removed and should now be configured through the windows service manager interface.

-           The monitor service now keeps track of the sequence number for IMx devices and logs if packages are missing.

-           The monitor service now keeps track of when the Connection to the IMx was opened.

-           The monitor service no longer has a user interface, since true services can't have a user interface (windows forms) but the interface of the monitor service can be viewed from the Monitor manager application or from Observer (Monitor service viewer) which means that the user interface can be viewed remotely.

-           Monitor now keeps track of the serial number of IMx and MasCon16 units. First time a device is connected, the serial number is stored in the database and if another device with the same ID but with a different serial number is connected, then the connection is refused and a system alarm is generated. This is to avoid data corruption and prevent units from uploading data into wrong databases. The serial number is displayed in the monitor service viewer interface which makes it easy to support.

-           Performance of data storage has been increased with approximately 300 to 400% according to tests.

-           The monitor service no longer accepts requests for computer reboot from Observer, this posed a threat and more damage than good. It is now an obsolete function of Observer.

-           Temporary configuration files for Devices no longer overwrite each other when running several instances of monitor but get unique names.

-           The check for "Missing data" which in turn generates system alarms for devices if they have not reported data for a long time is now remembered even if the service restarts.

-           The monitor now keeps track of invalid packages received from the Devices, and will store and display in the monitor service viewer.

-           The monitor application can now store data on millisecond level instead of only second level.

 

            Plots

-           Margins and minor changes have been made to the plots in order to improve readability and usage of space on the screen.

-           The measurement date list now displays the total number of measurements available for the measurement point and also the number of measurements listed.

-           The diagnosis plot can now use process and speed on the x-axis like the trend plot can

-           Curve fit is now possible to apply to the diagnosis plot.

-           The measurement date list now displays two decimals for Process and speed value columns.

-           Diagnosis can now have a configurable search range or tolerance.

-           It is now possible with a user preference to set if spectra or spectra / time waveform combination plot should be opened when clicking on a domain data indication in the trend or diagnose plot.

-           It is now possible to set the unit displayed for time waveform as a graph setting. Previously this was following the same setting in which the FFT was displayed.

-           It is now possible to use ctrl select and shift select in the measurement date list      and open these specific measurements in the history and 3D plot.

-           Live trend values now is sent by the monitor service only when there is a new live value available.

 

            User configuration

-           A new user right "read notes" has been introduced which when not enabled, hides the notes in the trend plot and the notes list.

-           The user can now select to see fractions of seconds in the plots, this is useful if there is more than one measurement during the same second.

-           Longer fields (50 characters) can be used for first name and last name.

-           Alarm notifications is now a user preference.

 

            Machine Attachments

-           It is now possible to add attachments (files) to machines, for example Oil analysis reports

 

            Emailing

-           Emailing now contains the path of the alarm and not only the name.

-           Emailing is now configured from Inside Observer.

-           It is now possible to select HTML, Plain or Truncated format for the system alarm and alarm emails.

-           It is now possible for each other to configure if he or she should or not receive system alarm emails, alarm emails and monitor service notifications respectively.

-           It is now possible to configure a custom subject for each user when sending emails which makes it easier to reroute the emails such as SMS messages to phones.

-           It is now possible to configure the alarm and system alarm reporting interval (previously this was fixed to 5 minutes).

 

            Database administrator

-           A new function "Backup now" has been added.

-           When attaching databases, the .log file is now optional. This will automatically create a new .log file.

           

            Database

-           Existing WindCon/MasCon16 units can now be converted directly from inside Observer under the properties for the MasCon 16/WindCon device.

-           Backup channel and Backup channel trigger have now been removed from the point properties when configuring devices other than MasCon48.

-           When adding bearings to a database the bearing also gets added to any external databases that are attached.

-           Microlog can now use a tri-axis sensor for Single axis points.

-           Microlog now uses speed from speed point automatically if the vibration point lacks speed information.

-           Data form the database can now automatically be deleted by monitor when older than a specific date. This does not apply to trend values.

 

            Other

-           When listening to a time waveform it is now possible to save this as a .wave file.

-           Introduction of GSC services.

-           Introduction of Data miner views.

-           Machine parts can now store the part number as information field.

-           The grid lines on the print out are now thinner.

-           If creating a channel with an empty channel name the channel gets an automatic name.

-           Machine name is now displayed in the 4-20mA output selection dialog.

-           The IMx measurement configuration file now contains information about which build of Observer was used to generate it.

-           A command line parameter "USE_APP_PATH" can now be added to the shortcut of the Observer application which will cause the application to use the application path for reading .ini files and configuration files instead of the application data folder.

-           OPC UA support

-           Machine copy wizard now skips channel and DAD configuration when the user selects not to include measurement points in the copy operation.

-           Built-in messaging has been added to Observer.

-           If machine templates contains bearing that are missing the database which the machine is being created in, the bearing is added to the bearing library automatically.

 

            Minor

-           The multiple point update wizard now displays the time it was finished. If a user tries to import a file that was created with newer version of Observer than the Observer system currently in use, the user will be informed about this and prompted to continue or not.

-           3-Channel measurement is no longer possible to select into transient groups.

-           Low warning and low alarm have been removed from counter measurement points.

-           "Counts" and "Counts rate" measurement points have now been renamed to "Counter" and "Counter rate".

-           Clicking on an item in the status bar now also functions as a shortcut and opens up functionality depending on the item clicked.

 

Observer 8.4

 

8.4.6    2012-02-20

-           If deselecting the last checkbox in the multi-trend plot, the software would raise an exception.

-           Custom values for the Y-Scale in multi-trend were not possible to set manually.

-           Exporting Orbit data dialog never appeared when right-clicking the graph.

-           Microlog route printout caused a Null-reference exception.

-           Downloading directly from hierarchy instead from a created workspace, sometimes caused that only a few measurements points were downloaded to the Microlog.

  

8.4.5    2011-09-16

-           "InvalidOperationException" could occur when starting the application.

-           Some power (^) formulas  was interpreted incorrectly and the measurement result were wrong.

-           An issue with too long description caused tri-ax measurement behave like 1-axis measurements.

-           "NullreferenceException" could occur in Spectra/Time waveform plot.

-           It was not possible to select Overall trend calculated from Time Waveform when using a Process FFT measurement point.

-           Sometimes when using the backup function in Observer could cause a Timeout error message to appear.

-           Counter measurement points incorrectly reset to zero when disabling the IMx unit.

  

8.4.4    2011-04-27

-           If a fault frequency was below the minimum scale when using log scale the label for the fault frequency was not shown.

-           Previous point button did not work for workspace view.

-           In the notes list the description text was truncated if the text was too long.

-           "Missing right parenthesis" error when using Oracle databases.

-           Integrating the time waveform to another unit produced the wrong result.

-           When using portable instruments if a measurement point lacks speed information, the speed information will automatically be fetched from the speed point.

   

8.4.3    2011-03-09

-           The reference spectra in the combination plots was sometimes not cleared when having the plot linked.

-           Automatic alarm levels for IMx and MasCon speed points was sometimes not set correctly.

-           Counter and Counter rate measurement points showed a value of 3600 times to high.

-           The monitor application could warn about the database size being close to maximum even though it was not.

-           Some minor issues with the band marker has been corrected.

-           If selecting Speed Following Frequency Range on an order tracking point the system could generate a not implemented operation.

-           A minor problem with multiselect has been fixed when clicking and holding the shift key when moving from one machine to the next.

-           The configuration format for the relays for Shaft centerline points was being incorrect which caused the relays to never trigger.

-           Under special circumstances some measurement points in the hierarchy could show an incorrect status and machines sometimes showed statuses that the measurement points did not have. This problem has been addressed.

-           Negative values in the multiple trend plot's bar graph was not visible because the automatic scale always set the lowest scale to zero.

  

8.4.2    2010-12-20  

-           Process overview information was not saved when creating machines from machine templates.

-           Entering a manual numeric value for the cursor point size setting in user preferences over 10 or under 1 would raise an unhandled exception.

-           Alarm levels was sometimes not stored when pumping data with the data pump for the first time into Observer.

-           When importing data with the import feature sometimes not all parts of the hierarchy was imported.

-           Trend list now visible.

-           It is now possible to configure "Protection" as external communication for IMx-M

-           The Last IP property of a MasCon/IMx unit was sometimes not displayed correctly in the monitor application.

-           3D plot graph and Topology plot graph were not releasing memory because of a bug in the .NET framework which could ultimately result in an out of memory exception.

-           Filtering by title in notes always filtered on the first item in the list and not on the selected item.

-           When deleting a lot of data, sometimes the database would throw a Timeout error.

-           Reports did not include plot data because an error in the feature that would remove unnecessary empty pages from the report.

-           Sqldatetime overflow error could occur when setting the buffer settings to "forward" as default.

-           Using a different scale factor than the default scale factor for Running Hours point caused incorrect values to be stored in the database.

-           Logging into Oracle databases sometimes caused a conversion error.

-           When using 12-hour date format (AM, PM) the duration calculation in the online devices incorrectly added 12 hours to the duration calculation.

-           The backup time in Options in Observer did not store correctly.

-           When using specialized system fonts the button on the registration form was not visible for the user to click on.

  

8.4.1    2010-10-11   

-           It was possible to drag the process overview values so small that they would get to small for the user to see and resize.

-           “XMLPoint” did not show alarm level and set alarm.

-           Dragging a measurement from the measurement date list to the spectrum plot window caused a run time error.

       

8.4.0    2010-09-01   

 

New features

-           Buffer setting can now be stored between sessions for an individual user.

-           Alarm hysteresis can now be configured for diagnosis.

-           Automatic alarm settings for trend alarms. After a specific number of historical values, Observer can apply an automatic alarm level based on a calculation of the historical values.

-           Torsion and Time difference type of measurement point now available for IMx.

-           Software process measurement point type. The user can now enter manually read values and enter them into a software process measurement point.

-           Support for Acceleration Enveloping 1, 2, 3 and custom enveloping in addition to the existing DPE.

-           Full 64 bit operating system support.

-           Observer now ships with both 32 bit and 64 bit SQL Server express R2. With SQL Server Express R2 no separate installation of SQL Management studio is required and each database can be up to 10 Gigabytes in size instead of 4 gigabytes.

 

 

Improvements/Enhancements to Current Functionality

-           “Spectra flags” in the trend plot now open up the spectra plot, time waveform plot or the combination plot spectra/time depending on the contents of the spectra flag that was clicked.

-           System alarms that are related to a physical position in a setup, for example a cable fault system alarm, can now also display the path to the node for the system alarm.

-           When importing data it is now possible to import data to existing measurement points if previously already imported.

-           The multi-trend plot now displays one vertical axis per E.U

-           Alarm hysteresis is now available for count rate measurement points

-           Count rate measurement points can now be configured to display pulses per week, day, hour, minute or second.

-           The IMx model is now displayed in the list of On-line devices.

-           Registration keys are no longer necessary to have for system commissioning.

-           The time waveform signal can now be reverted by a right click in the time waveform and the profile plots.

-           The DC part of the time waveform signal can be removed by a right click in time waveform and profile plots.

-           Air gap plot can now display data with- or without connecting lines between points.

-           Air gap measurements are now excluded from the multi trend plot.

-           The mouse wheel can now be used to change scales in most of the graphs.

-           The fault frequencies dialog can now be sorted according to name or type.

-           It is now possible to directly print the active window.

-           The alarm list now displays machine and submachine name of an alarm in the alarm list.

-           The colors of the trend graph's simultaneous process, speed and digital curve are now fixed instead of dynamic.

-           Multiple point update wizard now supports multiple selection in the hierarchy by CTRL click and SHIFT click.

-           Channels are now sorted alphabetically on the measurement point properties forms.

-           Using the mouse wheel in the graphs to change scales now picks the closest scale even when using auto scale.

 

 

 

Observer 8.3 

 

 

8.3.5    2011-04-27  

 -          Integrating the time waveform to another unit sometimes produced the wrong result.

 

       8.3.4    2011-03-09 

 -          A problem with transient groups for MasCon48 was corrected.

-           Under special circumstances some measurement points in the hierarchy could show an incorrect status and machines sometimes showed statuses that the measurement points did not have. This problem has been addressed.

 

 

8.3.3    2010-11-26

-           Editing email receivers in the monitor application the prefix field was not populated when opening the form. The labels for status and alarm were inverted.

-           Oracle “Overflow” conversion error has been addressed when converting Observer 7 or ProCon 6.5 databases.

-           Fault frequencies was displayed in the wrong positions on print outs.

-           Calculating diagnosis with speed following frequency ranges using shafts with different ratio than “1” the calculation went wrong.

-           Error in procedure “InitloggvalueSingle” when using trend type min has been addressed.

-           MVB Speed conversion from 19200 converted to 9600 and 9600 converted to “None”.

-           Deleting after refresh could sometimes cause the delete to occur on the wrong node.

-           A bug in the .NET framework caused Observer not releasing memory when using certain graphs. This problem was most noticeable in the 3D plot and the Topology plot.

-           When using 12-hour date format (AM, PM) the duration calculation in the online devices incorrectly added 12 hours to the duration calculation.

-           Using a different scale factor than the default scale factor for Running Hours point caused incorrect values to be stored in the database.

 

Additionally a few other problems has been addressed in 8.3.3. For details on these errors please contact TSG-EMEA@SKF.COM.

       8.3.2    2010-06-18

-           When converting an Oracle database, an error occurred if invalid data existed in the database that was converted.

-           The data pump now correctly creates an XML vibration point instead of XML process point.

-           When editing the date for a date that fell in the range between UTC and the display time that overlapped a date the incorrect (previous day) date was displayed in the edit dialog.

-           Saving the options inside Observer sometimes caused an error stating that “Kind property was not set correctly”.

-           The machine parts were sometimes positioned on top of each other when converting a database from ProCon 6.5 or Observer 7.

-           The monitor application was not able to store more than 32.768 values in the minute, hour, day and week buffers respectively.

-           On some levels in the process overview the background picture could not be saved.

-           Sometimes the database version verification between monitor and Observer when using Oracle databases reported the incorrect version of the database, when in fact it was correct.

-           An “Out of present range” could sometimes occur in the procedure “HandleLoggvalues” in the monitor application.

-           Positioning of the items in the process overview did not work correctly when building process overview based on workspaces.

-           Sometimes when downloading Mircolog routes the application would crash with an overflow error.

-           Using special formulas with derived points could cause an “Type mismatch” error in the monitor application.

 

 

8.3.1    2010-03-22

-           The monitor sometimes miscalculated diagnosis for planetary gears and was mismatching when comparing to when recalculating diagnosis in the Observer application.

-           When uploading routes with two axial phase measurement points, phase had zero amplitude and angle.

-           Monitor crashes without reporting anything to the error.txt file. However in the windows system log it usually prints out an error with ntdll.dll. Sometime a standard windows error dialogue box appears with an error message and sometimes the monitor application just disappears.

-           Selecting normal and transient buffer at the same time sometimes generated ORDER BY clause error in Observer.

-           In The trend for a spectrum point when clicking the spectrum diamond two spectrum windows appears.

-           When upgrading databases from 8.X to 8.3 sometimes the error message "Incorrect syntax near '(' appears." at the end of the update. This appears to be when upgrading databases that previously was converted from ProCon6.5/Observer 7 database and does only appear on older versions of SQL Server (SQL Server version 2000 for example).

-           If an incorrect version of an import file was imported and the software could not import the data, a notification was still displayed that the import was finished. The notification will now display that it has been aborted.

-           In order to force read .CON files and .INI files from the folder where ObserverWinUI executable file is running instead of the standard folder, the user can now specify “USE_APP_PATH” as a command line parameter on a shortcut.

-           Status bar not updating automatically the number of unacknowledged alarms upon new alarms

-           Performance when converting databases from ProCon 6.5 and Observer 7 has been improved by being able to use Database specific database libraries when converting databases. Also this should eliminate some of the unknown or unspecific database errors that can occur.

-           Band marker not behaving correctly.

-           Envelope point in the reports could not display History.

-           Linking some of the combination plots to the hierarchy tree could cause a .net error when one of the graph's data did not exist.

-           Linking could sometime indicate that it was enabled on some graph displayed when is was disabled.

-           Database size history should now store and display data correctly.

-           Non existing alarm and warning levels in the trend should now not be drawn instead of being drawn as zero.

-           Closing the time waveform playback form during playback now automatically stops playback.

-           An unzoom event is no longer triggered when a specific component is enabled or disabled in the trend display.

-           The diagnose window now zooms all diagnoses when zooming in any of the diagnosis.

-           Trigger channel for IMx Points now must be the same as speed channel.

-           A “MAIL FROM” error has been corrected in the monitor application.

-           The report form did not use UTC time and instead used normal computer time which could cause strange plots on printouts

-           All trend components were printed even though they were not configured.

-           Status in the hierarchy was sometimes not updated correctly in the database upon acknowledging alarms. This error is due to an incorrect Stored Procedure in the database and is corrected by updating the database with the 831.DEF file included in this service patch.

 

8.3.0    2010-01-21

 

New features

-           Improved gear analysis with Gear Inspector – a new time signal processing method and display for better visualization and detection of gear problems.

-           Air gap - Observer can now configure 4, 6, 8 or 10 channel air gap measurement points in order to display eccentricity and ovality for e.g. generators in hydro power stations.

-           Data Tagging of measurements – A text string can now be appended to measurements either via manual input or automatically through OPC.  This text string “characteristic” can be used to view and analyze data in a variety of ways such as by product type, specific asset (e.g. drive motor), model/manufacturer, etc.

-           Combination plot Diagnose-Spectra-Time waveform - This new plot, which is “anchored” on the diagnosis trend, displays the associated FFT and time waveform of the measurement based on the position of the diagnosis trend cursor

-           Combination plot Trend-Spectra-Time waveform - This new plot, which is based on the trend, displays the nearest available FFT and time waveform based on the position of the trend cursor

-           Convenient Deletion of Spurious or Unwanted Data – A new feature now allows deletion of data within a specific speed range, specific date range or measurements related to a specific material or characteristic.

-           ODS data export - Data can now be exported to a Universal file format which can be imported into software that can do animation for example ME’ Scope.

-           Maintenance planner - Scheduled tasks such as lubrication, replacements, etc. can now be planned and tracked efficiently via the maintenance planner. This feature keeps track of machine assets, their running hours, and when maintenance is due.

-           Software configuration of 4-20mA outputs – It is now possible to configure the 4-20 mA outputs on the IMx-T directly through Observer.

-           Running hours - It is now possible to create a running hours measurement point for IMx units and MasCon units for effective use with the new maintenance planner feature.

 

 

Improvements/Enhancements to Current Functionality

 

-           Machine parts functionality

 

o          MasCon / IMx Derived measurement points can now be used as speed input when configuring machine parts.

o          When configuring the machine parts, it is now possible to copy the machine parts from an already existing machine.

o          Electrical frequencies have been added to rotor and stator components and are now visible among the fault frequencies in the FFT.

 

-           DiagX

 

o          Observer’s DiagX Feature now also works for Sideband and band cursors.

o          DiagX can now also be used in the time waveform plot.

 

-           Right Mouse Click in Hierarchy

 

o          Can be used to conveniently enable or disable measurement points or alarm blocking under a specific machine or node.

o          It is now possible to add notes with a right click in the hierarchy.

 

-           Measurement POINTs

 

o          On the measurement points properties is now possible to browse for a specific gear on specific machine parts when setting up alarm frequencies.

o          Measurement points are now groups into binary based measurement points and trend based measurement points.

 

-           Diagnosis

 

o          When configuring diagnose blocks some adjustments has been done to accommodate for longer names.      

o          It is now possible to copy diagnosis from one measurement point to another measurement points on the same machine.

o          New diagnosis for planetary gear is available. Rotation of planetary bearing speed in diagnosis and fault frequencies in order to better detect gear box failures.

 

-           Measurements

 

o          When saving a live FFT or Time waveform to the database acquired through the on-line live interface in Observer this measurement will default be excluded from diagnosis.

o          The measurement date list now displays more information, also delta speed, delta process and the data type that was in the measurement, spectra, time or phase.

o          It is now possible from the Spectra graph to clear the current reference spectra.

o          Measurement date list also shows which measurement is selected as reference.

 

-           Plots

 

o          Double clicking in the history opens up the plot in full size mode.

o          Profile plot has been refreshed with new features and better visibility.

o          Band marker functionality changed in FFT, time waveform and Phase plots. (Better visibility and no longer truncated).

o          When setting a measurement as reference the measurement will automatically be flagged with the Keep forever flag.

 

o          The user can now select the number of harmonics for the harmonic cursor between 20 and 200.

o          It is now easier to exclude an FFT from diagnosis with a right click.

o          System log changes are now displayed in the trend

o          An option has been added to hide/show markers in the waterfall

 

-           Process Overview

 

o          New user right “view process view only”.

o          Process view can now be opened in full screen mode.

o          Process view now has a main process overview that includes all databases and is called “Enterprise process overview”.

o          Process overview now has an “up one level” button.

 

-           Miscellaneous

 

o          The listen function of the time waveform is now opened in an external window. The Speed and the length of the time waveform can be modified during listening.

o          System log now displays the downloaded version of the firmware for the Dad.

o          If the firmware is missing in the database Observer will raise a notification message when configuring the MasCon/IMx units.

o          Log scale decades now have the option of selecting 4 and 5 decades in addition to 2 and 3 decades.

o          When a connection to the monitor application is not established the user gets notified about this when trying to execute commands to the Dad that requires a monitor connection.

o          Small icons are now available for the toolbar as a user preference.

o          The monitor application now shows the connection ports and the current database in the status bar.

o          Alarm list now displays the sub machine or machine name also.