What’s Involved in Routine Preventive Maintenance

Clean the drive equipment:
Dust and other foreign materials can create cooling problems, hide damaged components, cause corrosion, and cause arcing and other damage.

Check motor resistance and connections:
Motors often exhibit changes in resistance prior to failing.

Verify all power connections:
Power connections can loosen over time due to vibration and heat related expansion and contraction. Loose power connections can cause fuse blowing, breaker tripping, damage to terminal strips, insulation failure and ground faults.

Verify power supplies for tolerance:
Power supplies can drift out of tolerance due to electronic problems such as faulty electrolytic caps. These will eventually cause a complete shutdown.

Observe relevant wave forms for best operation:
We typically look at the supplies, at the output waveforms, at the reference signals, and at feedback signals. This often uncovers otherwise hidden problems.

Verify signal wiring, shielding properly terminated, and tight connections:
Improper shielding can cause erratic and intermittent behavior of drive equipment, and loose signal wiring is a primary cause of drive equipment downtime.