Patent ID: 7171313

Claim:
An impact transmitter device for measuring impact events in a reciprocating machine and transmitting data respecting said impact events to an external computer, said impact transmitter device comprising: a housing which is mounted to the reciprocating machine; a connector attached to the housing for electrically connecting the impact transmitter device to the external computer; an electrical assembly within the housing and connected to the connector for detecting impact events and transmitting information respecting said impact events to the external computer, said electrical assembly comprising: a sensing device which produces an output voltage when a machine impact occurs; a microprocessor: (i) which is initialized by signals sent to it from the external computer; (ii) which counts the number of times (N 1 ) that the output of the sensing device exceeds a first reference voltage and the number of times (N 2 ) that the output of the sensing device exceeds a second reference voltage during a time window, where the second reference voltage is greater in magnitude than the first reference voltage; and (iii) which produces a voltage from which an output current (I OUT ) is produced for communication to the external computer after the conclusion of a time window, said output current being defined by the formula: I OUT =α 1 N 1 +α 2 N 2 +I L where α 1 and α 2 are incremental current values, I L , is a current value >4 ma and <20 ma, and α 1 , α 2 and I L are communicated to the microprocessor from the external computer when the external computer is connected to the microprocessor.