Repair vs replace a servo drive: how to decide

When a servo drive fails, most people compare the price of a repair with the price of a new drive. That comparison misses the number that matters most: what every hour of a stopped line costs you.

A new drive with a three-week lead time can cost far more in lost production than the drive itself. A repair with a typical 24 to 72 hour turnaround, or an exchange unit, changes the picture completely. Our Downtime Cost Calculator lets you put your own numbers on it in a minute.

• The drive is discontinued or hard to get. Many machines run drives the manufacturer no longer makes. Repair keeps a proven machine running without a costly retrofit.
• A new drive has a long lead time. If the replacement is weeks away, repair is almost always faster.
• You want an exact match. Your own unit, repaired, goes back in with the same part number and hardware. There is no need to match a new revision or firmware to the rest of the machine.
• The failure is a typical component fault. Power transistors (IGBTs), DC link capacitors, power supplies on the control board, fans and connectors fail with age and are repairable at component level.

• Severe physical damage. Fire, water or heavy impact damage can leave a unit beyond economic repair.
• Repeated failures from the same machine. If drives keep failing in one position, the cause may be outside the drive: a shorted motor, a damaged cable or a supply problem. Fix that first.
• A planned upgrade. If you are already modernising the machine, a new drive family may be part of the plan.

You do not always have to choose between waiting for a repair and buying new.

• Exchange unit: we supply a tested replacement and you send us your failed unit. It is the fastest way back into production when we have the unit in stock. How exchange works.
• Refurbished unit: an inspected, repaired and tested drive from our stock. Useful as a spare so the next failure costs you minutes, not days. Shop servo drives.

1. Is this drive still made, and what is the real lead time for a new one?
2. What does one hour of downtime cost us?
3. Do we have a spare, or a backup of the drive's parameters?
4. Has this drive position failed before?
5. Is the damage physical, or did the drive simply stop working?

Every repair we do starts with a free evaluation. We power the unit up, find the root cause and send you a written quote before any work starts, so you can compare repair, exchange and replacement with real numbers. If a unit cannot be repaired economically, we tell you before doing any work. Request a repair.