Extech VB300 Vibration Data Logger

I got what I paid for, it captures the data which I can read from my PC. It is an okay unit for a low price. Read the specs carefully and make sure the 50ms sampling rate is suitable for your application. The output is saved as a tab delimited file, which can be read by Excel, but a few minutes of manipulation is required to make the time stamps useful. As far as I can tell, it can only make one recording after each connection to the PC. Once you have made a recording, you must reset the unit from the PC before it will make another recording. This can be a nuisance.

good

This is an amazing piece of measurement gear, particularly for the price. It works perfectly, though it took a little fiddling for my computer (Windows 7) to find it. The software works just fine and is simple to use. Sure, it's doesn't have a slick interface, but engineers generally don't care so much about that. We care more about the accuracy and precision of the data, and the fact that this device comes calibrated is really great. Most of the inexpensive vibration analyzers you can buy are only 1 axis. This one is 3 axis. That's a huge difference. The fact that the software does a really nice vector sum is another bonus in my opinion. The device is well built and obviously designed for use in the field. The battery compartment is probably intentionally made vibration resistant, and thus difficult to open, because if the battery is rattling around inside the unit, then it will record false data. It's a well engineered device and it deserves a much better rating that it's received thus far.

I would recommend this unit over most of the vib meters in the $1-2k range - just add in a cheap laptop and you have a piece of equipment that is much more versatile & powerful than the mid/low range standalone meters. I plan on buying 2-3 more for field use - one for each of my crews doing field alignments on rotating equipment.This unit has the ability to display real time FFT data including a frequency vs magnitude plot, which is very useful in troubleshooting vibration issues on equipment in the shop or field. There are plenty of free courses & resources on the internet that tell you what the different peaks, etc on the frequency domain FFT mean, so look these up ahead of your trip & keep them on your laptop.I felt a lot better about taking this unit to a customer site in an "unstable" country than the $10k CSI vib meter that was my usual go to. It's small & inexpensive enough that Customs didn't even care and I wouldn't have felt bad if I had to leave it behind. It looks like a puffed up thumb drive, not a meter. No import/export paperwork, no separate shipping, just carry it in my computer bag & go.With the included software I felt like I had all the functionality I needed to verify a vib issue in the field and complete a root cause analysis, including a report with professional looking graphs, etc. I tested it at the shop vs the CSI meter I usually use and found that it takes care of all of the same essential functions that I use in a diagnosis.I had some issues getting the unit to connect to my laptop, but I was able to call Extech customer support and Forest was very helpful. He solved my problem quickly and I had no issues the rest of the trip.Buy some extra batteries as these 1/2 AA lithiums are tough to find outside of a specialty battery shop. If you're using it for real time analysis connected to a laptop, you don't need a battery as it gets its power from the USB port.

The unit is completely unpredictable as to whether it will 1. Work, or 2 , cause the software to hang which requires a restart of the computer because even the task manager will not shut the software down. And 3, it is totally unable to operate in motion detection mode which is the only mode that can use g force thresholds.It is not Mac compatible so it sat around until I got a windows computer. This ran down the short return window soI am now stuck with this garbage and the company that sells it (not Amazon or FLIR) after admitting I have a defective unit will do NOTHING to help me get it working or replaced.Bad product, and vendors like this speak badly for AMAZON and for the mfg. NO STARS! .