PLANT & MACHINERY / BULK HANDLING
Bucket elevator monitoring
A hot bearing inside a dust-filled leg
Bucket elevators lift grain, powders, pellets and aggregates vertically, and they combine two unpleasant properties: the critical rotating parts are at the head and boot where nobody can see them while running, and the whole enclosed leg is typically full of combustible dust. A misaligned or slipping belt, a worn head bearing or a dragging boot generates friction and heat exactly where the dust is, which is why bucket elevators appear so consistently in dust-explosion incident analysis. Manual inspection means stopping the leg and opening it, so it happens rarely, and the developing fault gets weeks to progress in between.
Talk through your site ● Answered within one working day
The difference
Bucket elevator monitoring: what changes the day it goes live
Bucket elevators lift grain, powders, pellets and aggregates vertically, and they combine two unpleasant properties: the critical rotating parts are at the head and boot where nobody can see them while running, and the whole enclosed leg is typically full of combustible dust. A misaligned or slipping belt, a worn head bearing or a dragging boot generates friction and heat exactly where the dust is, which is why bucket elevators appear so consistently in dust-explosion incident analysis. Manual inspection means stopping the leg and opening it, so it happens rarely, and the developing fault gets weeks to progress in between.
- Vibration and bearing temperature at head and boot, the two locations that matter and the two nobody can inspect on a running leg
- Friction and heat detected early, which is a recognised ignition-source control in a DSEAR and ATEX risk assessment rather than only a maintenance benefit
- Belt slip and misalignment inferred from the vibration signature and drive current before they wear the buckets or the casing
- Planned intervention in a shutdown window rather than an unplanned stop, on a machine that halts intake and outload when it fails
What you get
- 01
Vibration and bearing temperature at head and boot, the two locations that matter and the two nobody can inspect on a running leg
- 02
Friction and heat detected early, which is a recognised ignition-source control in a DSEAR and ATEX risk assessment rather than only a maintenance benefit
- 03
Belt slip and misalignment inferred from the vibration signature and drive current before they wear the buckets or the casing
- 04
Planned intervention in a shutdown window rather than an unplanned stop, on a machine that halts intake and outload when it fails
The full stack, applied here
All five layers, one accountable system
Every Indiott build runs all five layers as one accountable system. Follow a single live signal from the sensor that catches it to the report that proves it.
Turnkey LoRaWAN and industrial sensors read the physical world at the edge, on battery, without rewiring the site.
Hands a reading to CONNECT ↓
Gateways, industrial routers and serial device servers carry every reading back over LoRaWAN, 4G, 5G, Ethernet or satellite, so the far edge reports as reliably as the plant room.
Hands a signed stream to SECURE ↓
OT security by design: managed switching, VPN and firewall routers, protocol gateways and hardware data diodes keep the network segmented and the data tamper-evident to IEC 62443.
Hands a trusted stream to CONTROL ↓
When you want the system to act, remote IO, wireless valves and the bespoke Indiott Engineering line close the loop, dose, switch, isolate or interlock, with no human in the middle.
Hands an action to MANAGE ↓
The software layer turns it into decisions: live dashboards, mapping, alarming and analytics, with one-tap reports and clean feeds into your SCADA, BMS or existing platform.
The loop is closed ✓
How teams start
From a single pilot to the whole portfolio
You do not boil the ocean. Nearly every rollout runs the same four moves, and you own a working, evidenced result at the end of the first one.
Scope & risk map
We walk the sites, list the assets and pin the one constraint that matters, then agree what a good result looks like before a single sensor is bought.
Pilot on one site
A focused set of sensors goes onto one site or asset group, live on our telemetry and dashboards, wired to the people who need the alert.
Validate & standardise
We tune thresholds, kill false positives, confirm the integration into your SCADA, BMS or CAFM, and write the standard design down so it repeats.
Scale the portfolio
The proven design rolls out across the estate, reusing the same hardware standards and data models so every site reads the same way.
The bucket elevator monitoring kit we deploy
Full catalogue
Urban.io Activity Sensor
Request a price
Urban.io Ambient Temperature Sensor
Request a price
Urban.io Battery Test Sensor
Request a price
Urban.io Current Sensor
Request a price
Urban.io Delta Pressure Sensor
Request a price
Urban.io Gateway
Request a price
Urban.io Humidity Sensor
Request a price
Urban.io Light Sensor
Request a price
| Model | Key specification | Price ex VAT | Availability |
|---|---|---|---|
| Urban.io Activity Sensor | — | Price on request | Quote only |
| Urban.io Ambient Temperature Sensor | — | Price on request | Quote only |
| Urban.io Battery Test Sensor | — | Price on request | Quote only |
| Urban.io Current Sensor | — | Price on request | Quote only |
| Urban.io Delta Pressure Sensor | — | Price on request | Quote only |
| Urban.io Gateway | — | Price on request | Quote only |
| Urban.io Humidity Sensor | — | Price on request | Quote only |
| Urban.io Light Sensor | — | Price on request | Quote only |
Brands in this kit: Urban.io
Why Indiott
A specialist stack, not a box-shifter
Brand-agnostic by design
We pick the best of each brand for the layer and the environment, not one vendor catalogue. Milesight, AquaIoT, Atop, Browan, SpecSens and Urban.io, chosen on merit.
The whole stack, one supplier
Sensing, connectivity, OT security, control and the dashboard come from one accountable team, so there is no finger-pointing when something needs to talk to something else.
Specified and supported in Britain
UK-based engineers scope the site, quote the kit and stand behind it, with compliance mapped to the regimes your auditors actually cite.
Honest kit, honest pricing
Prices are shown where we can, quoted fast where we cannot, and you get a straight answer and a bill of materials within one working day.
DEPLOYED IN THE FIELD
Compliance this answers to
| Standard | What it requires |
|---|---|
| DSEAR 1998 | control of ignition sources in explosive dust atmospheres, where hot bearings and friction are named hazards |
| ATEX 2014/34/EU and UKEX | equipment and protective systems in potentially explosive atmospheres, and the zoning that governs what may be installed where |
| PUWER 1998 | maintaining work equipment in an efficient state and in good repair |
| ISO 10816 / ISO 20816 | vibration severity zones giving defensible thresholds on the drive and head bearings |
What it costs, roughly
A leg instrumented at head and boot with drive current is in the low hundreds of pounds, sharing a gateway across the site. On a terminal or mill with several legs, cost per point falls sharply. Note that any sensor inside a classified zone must be certified for it, and that is quoted separately and honestly.
Bucket elevator monitoring: asked before buying
Can these sensors go inside the leg, in the dust zone?
No, and this is the most important thing on this page. The Urban.io sensors are IP67 industrial devices and are not ATEX or UKEX certified, so they must not be installed inside a classified zone. They mount externally on bearing housings and drive components outside the zone boundary, which is where head and boot bearings are usually accessible anyway. Where you need instrumentation inside the zone, that requires certified equipment and we will quote it as such rather than pretending these will do.
Does this replace a hazard monitoring system?
No. Dedicated bucket elevator hazard monitoring, covering belt misalignment, speed and bearing temperature to the relevant standard, is a safety system and stays exactly as it is. This adds condition trending and remote visibility on top, particularly on legs that have no hazard monitoring at all, which in practice is a great many of them.
Will dust build-up on the sensor affect readings?
Vibration is read through the mounting into the bearing housing, so surface dust does not meaningfully affect it, and the enclosure is sealed to IP67. What we would flag is that a sensor caked in product is harder to spot as failed, so it belongs in your normal walk-round the same as any other instrument.
Next step
Scope it with an engineer.
Tell us the site, the assets and the constraint. You get a bill of materials and a straight answer within one working day.
- A bill of materials sized to your site
- Priced ex VAT, UK entity, no login wall
Rather talk it through? Call 023 9223 3611
Received. An engineer has it.
You will hear back within one working day with the parts, the prices and the lead time. A confirmation is on its way to your inbox.
If it is urgent, call 023 9223 3611.