Twelve motors on the case line. Five are on PowerFlex drives, the other seven are line fed off plain starters. Management wants predictive maintenance and gave me a budget that covers a few CTs and one 8 channel analog card for the CompactLogix.

I've seen plenty of belts and bearings go on this line. The motor gets loud, then it gets hot, then it lets go on a Sunday. We have already got current off the five drives over EtherNet/IP for nothing, and runtime hours per motor in the PLC.

What I'm not sure about is whether a CT on the seven line fed motors tells you anything real or whether it's just something pretty for the dashboard. And if it is real, which of them, because the card only has eight channels. Which of the seven would you put the eight channels on, or is the money better spent somewhere else altogether?