DATASTICK VSA has written about the difference between a vibration meter versus a collector, tester and analyser.
A vibration meter is the smallest and lowest in cost, and gives the least information. It has a tiny display, and usually only a numeric reading of overall vibration.
Often the sensor is held onto the measurement point by hand. According to Datastick VSA, this does not provide a reliable contact.
A vibration collector might or might not be portable. Its purpose is mainly to collect raw data from the sensor that is connected to the measurement point on the machine that then gets transferred into a software program on a computer at the user's desktop or elsewhere.
The software performs vibration calculations on the data and displays the result in a meaningful form.
The vibration tester provides some meaningful information during data collection, but the main analysis is done on the computer.
The top unit is a vibration analyser, such as the Datastick Vibration Spectrum Analysers. These run on a personal digital computer with a screen large enough to enable users to see and zoom in on relevant parts of the actual FFT spectrum or time-domain waveform.
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