INVERTER DRIVES NEED SOME TLC
Environmental factors such as heat, dust, moisture and high peak loading can take their toll on inverter and servo drives; the sales of drives rocketed during the 90’s and many are now reaching an age where they will need some attention to prevent performance degradation and possible failures.
Deritend offers a full health check, repair and recondition service for both inverter drives and servo equipment, the cost of which is minute compared to the costs of production downtime on any size of drive. The cost of maintenance and repairs on medium and large sized drives will also be far less than a replacement, should problems arise.
Mark Jackson of Deritend Wolverhampton comments, “medium and larger drives, over about 30KW, will invariably cost significantly less to repair than new replacement units. We tend to replace any item up to around 7.5kW automatically because the piece cost has reduced significantly in recent years. Larger drives can cost tens of thousands new however and are usually crucial to production or the operation of an installation – these are the drives that need care and attention, and it is worth checking them, particularly of they are approaching ten years old.”
Electrical components such as fans, IGBT (insulated gate bipolar transistor) packs and capacitors will naturally degrade and eventually need replacing, PCBs can work loose, crack and suffer from heat damage, components are also prone to collecting dust and particle debris that can cause heat build-up and in extreme cases start to affect mounted components. As a preventative measure inspection and cleaning is recommended.
Fans are another vulnerable area, as effective ventilation is vital and fans tend to wear out before other components. Problems with cooling inside the cabinet can easily reduce the life of a drive by 50% and are more common than component failures, often being the route cause of a failure that is attributed to overheating.
Regular visual checking of drives is recommended, as is using thermographic survey equipment to identify hot-spots inside and outside drive cabinets. Other useful tips include making a copy of any drive parameters and bespoke programmed software, just in case a failure occurs and it affects the drive software. One last point is to remember that advice is free and Deritend has 15 locations across the UK with specialist electronic repair for drives and motors located at several key points around the country.
Deritend Group Ltd
The Deritend Group Ltd provides UK industry with the widest range of maintenance and management services designed to optimise business activities, improve efficiency and reduce costs. The Group operates in eight areas of competence: customised asset management, electro-mechanical, maintenance, energy management, product sales, pre-formed windings, induction services and automation & control. These services are brought to customers through a network of national service centres. Staffed by trained professionals, the centres are on hand 24- hours-a-day, 7- days a week to respond to customer needs and provide effective maintenance solutions.
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For further information contact: Helen Holman, Marketing Manager, Deritend Group Ltd, Cyprus Street Off Upper Villiers Street, Wolverhampton, West Midlands WV2 4PB Tel: 01902 – 392315 E-mail: hholman@deritend.co.uk Web: www.deritend.co.uk
Issued by, and electronic versions available from:
Bob Dobson, BDL Matrix Marketing, High Bank, River, Petworth GU28 9AX
Tel 01798 861677 email: bdl.studio@virgin.net www.bobdobson.com