Since 2001, Cutsforth™ has installed over 40,000 of the best-in-class EASYchange® brush holders on turbine generators worldwide. Now, with our exclusive EASYchange® Brush Condition Monitoring, Cutsforth™ offers an even better way to operate your generator’s brush-type excitation. Automated measurements and brush health analytics can now be delivered to the control room system and maintenance can be performed based on brush condition, rather than a calendar.
The Brush Condition Monitoring System is composed of the Brush Health Sensor (BHS), a Cutsforth™ developed industrial data logger, and a System Controller equipped with a touch-screen interface that compiles data collected from several BHS units installed with the EASYchange® brush holders.
At the generator, the System Controller’s touchscreen user interface visually alerts users of short brushes and high vibrations, both based on plant defined thresholds.
This same critical data can also be relayed to the control room or historian reducing the number of unnecessary physical inspections.
For quick reference, brush health historical analytics are logged by the system and available on the Brush Detail screen for each brush holder location.
Trending brush health analytics improves operator efficiencies and optimizes a plant’s staff utilization. This greatly reduces operating expenses and forced outages resulting from catastrophic events such as ring fires and flashovers.
The data squares represent each individual brush of the system, providing relevant data and critical threshold warnings as shown.