Servo motors are hardy little devices. Though small and compact, they are capable of putting out tremendous amounts of power, and do so with little fuss for long periods of time. Servos with the Indramat logo can run for decades, moving heavy loads, with little or no maintenance in harsh spray down environments. As tough as these motors are, however, they do have an Achilles heel, and that is heat.
Considering that summer and heat go hand-in-hand in most of the northern hemisphere, it makes perfect sense that the number of heat failures goes up during the hot summer months.
Heat can do a number on servos, regardless of who manufactured the motor. It’s important to recognize the risks that arise during the summer, and what to do if your servos start overheating.
Industrial machines generate a lot of heat. If the servo is contained in an air-conditioned cabinet, this heat can be easily managed. However if it’s hot outside, hot inside the factory, and the temperature within the cabinet is not being controlled, servos can get too hot, and heat failure can occur.
While you can’t do anything about the outside temperature, the temperature within your own plant and the cabinet temperature are within your control. The best way to prevent your servo from overheating is to make sure that your air-conditioned cabinets are working properly.
This is easy to forget when you’re on a tight budget and your air conditioned server cabinet is no longer conditioning anything. You figure that a working cabinet isn’t necessary to the function of your machinery, and a $20 box fan is the quickest, simplest, and most affordable short-term fix. So you pull the trigger on your box fan, and decide that it will hold you over until you have the time and money to properly fix the cabinet.
Do not open up your cabinet and blast it with a box fan.
That fan sucks up all of the dirt and grime from your plant and pours it over the sensitive electronics within the cabinet. Dirty circuitry can actually hasten heat failures. This leads to excessive downtime and more expensive problems than a broken cabinet.
Summer is tough on servos, but we’re here to help. Give us a call for any of your Indramat needs.