Here at EMA, we repair a variety of drives (VFDs and DC Drives) from a variety of manufacturers and customers. When we receive a drive, we diagnose the problem (for free I might add…) and determine if it’s repairable. That has been our standard procedure for over 20 years.
We get many questions from customers asking what caused the problem, instead of what the problem actually is. We’ve seen an increasing number of these questions and it is no doubt related to the needs of all businesses lately to save money and determine long term issues. Unfortunately, diagnosing the cause of a problem without knowing all the factors involved is nearly impossible. Just like your car, dishwasher, or anything else, numerous factors contribute to failure and while seeing the end result does give us indications, it rarely tells us precisely what the underlying problem was.
Often, the drives shipped in for repair are from facilities we’ve never set foot in. We don’t know what processes the drives are running, the environmental conditions involved, or what the on-site maintenance personnel have already done trying to repair the drive. An article on everything that could cause a drive failure would be long and very boring. Input power abnormalities, environmental conditions, age, miswiring, and motor problems are just a few things that can cause drive failures.
When you receive a repaired drive back from EMA, you will receive a job completion report that tells you all the hard facts of what we did to solve the drive’s problem and the POSSIBLE cause of failure. I emphasis “possible” because although “Nobody, anywhere is better at drives than we are”, we currently are not qualified to see into the past or be in two places at once (on another note, we are looking to hire someone with those skills…). Our “just the facts” policy has served us well in the past and allows us to stay neutral in disputes between manufacturers, insurance companies, and many others that show up when money is involved.
With that being said, here are a few suggestions that would help us when we help you:
1. When you send in a repair, include a detailed report of why you sent it in, what process the drive is running, and any other relevant information that you know of.
2. Make sure the drive is actually the issue; it is human nature to blame the most complicated thing when something isn’t working properly (I do this with my car all the time). I can’t tell you the number of service calls I
do to where the drive is not the problem at all. Having a spare drive can greatly help in this troubleshooting process; EMA sells a variety of new VFDs as well as used ones on our eBay store: (click the link to go there) EMA EBAY STORE
3. The BEST way to determine the underlying issue is to, of course, call EMA for a field service call. Our technicians can do a comprehensive investigation into the process and find the problem behind the drive failure. Some money up front for the service can save you extraordinary amounts of costly downtime in the future. EMA also performs preventive maintenance on your equipment, and that’s also a great way to avoid downtime.
4. Finally remember our motto here at EMA: Keep it clean, keep it dry, and keep our competition away from it!
Trey Mayfield.. EMA Norcross