Saw blades are the “heart” of a sawmill. The precision cutting and longest possible service life of the blades have a crucial influence on the quality of the cut and the overall costs of a sawmill. Equipment manufacturers offer motor management through power monitoring to get the best possible protection for the saw blades. With “hard streaked” or “twisted” logs – so-called reaction wood, and with blunt saws, there is higher power consumption and the feed rate is reduced. This system is sluggish and slow and so does not enable optimum protection of the saw blades.
The CSM Heartbeat system monitors the “heartbeat” of the saw blades like a stethoscope. Every slight noise is registered and appropriate impulses are immediately sent on to the control unit of the sawing line. Before the motors even start to take up more power due to the higher load, the acoustic circular saw monitoring system counteracts this. CSM Heartbeat reduces the feed rate – often just for a second, so as to prevent any “pinching” and so damage to the saw blades. After this short reduction, the sawing plant immediately carries on again at normal speed. Finally, CSM Heartbeat allows to increase the overall speed of the sawmill, thus improves the output of the whole sawing plant – it has the same effect as “chip-tuning” with cars.
Set-up, function, installation & service of CSM Heartbeat
CSM Heartbeat is very easy to set up: it comprises an acoustic sensor (microphone), an electronic unit and the CSM software, always in the latest version. The microphone continuously monitors the noise level (SLP) of the saw blades. If a value is registered by the microphone which is above the limit set, therefore indicating imminent “pinching” or an overload, then the CSM electronics and software immediately send a command to the sawing plant’s control unit resulting in a short reduction in the feed rate, and the plant is soon running at normal speed again.
