One of the problems we continue to see our customers deal with is lack of parts availability for their medium voltage variable frequency drives when they fail. First off, we highly suggest having spare parts BEFORE you have failure. But when a situation occurs that leaves you down with no parts available, you are left with a few options:
- Buy a new drive
- Some of the major manufacturers are stocking the more common frame sizes, but they are on a first-come, first-serve basis
- Buy a refurbished drive
- Rent a drive until the parts you need show up
We’ve had several instances recently where a customer chose to rent a drive from EMA to keep production going until the proper parts showed up for them to fix their existing drive.
As with any decision, there are pros and cons to renting a MV drive; it’s not for every situation.
Renting a medium voltage VFD is advantageous when:
- Parts for the existing drive have a lead time of less than 6 months
- It may be more financially viable to buy a refurbished drive (if available) if the rental is going to be over 6 months
- The project is temporary and there is no need for a permanently installed medium voltage VFD
- You have ordered new drives that are delayed and production cannot wait any longer
We recently had a customer have their Rockwell Powerflex 6000 blow several power cells. Lead time from Rockwell on new power cells was around 15 weeks so they rented a 1500 HP Toshiba T300MVi in a weather proof e-house to keep production going until the parts showed up. This drive was put outside of their facility and wired in, so they easily transitioned back to their drive when the parts showed up.
We have another instance where a customer had new, Siemens MV drives, but a manufacturing defect arose right after startup, and Siemens/Innomotics told them they’d need 6 months to fix the issue. The customer rented three medium voltage VFDs from us to keep production going. These drives were NEMA 1 drives that were mounted inside in a different location than their existing drives.
EMA provides full startup services for any drive we rent and we have a variety of drives available in different sizes and in indoor or outdoor enclosures. Don’t settle for months and months of downtime, let EMA help you! Call us, email us, or use our chat feature to discuss with us further if a rental drive is a viable option for you!
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