Keep your old servos

The servo and control equipment in use might be old but if it’s performing perfectly there’s probably no need to change it. And if any of the motors do eventually start to fail the most logical and cost-effective solution would be to replace them with like-for-like drop-in replacements. But problems arise when maintenance engineers discover that their original supplier no longer stocks or supports the old motors.

Most manufacturers will usually recommend upgrading to their very latest product but this could involve re-engineering to accommodate the new motors on old machines, as well as new cabling, software and new drives. If the operator has a factory with many similar machines then retrofitting them all with new equipment when all that was really needed was a replacement servo is not logical by any measure.

For companies operating a large number of machines, all fitted with the same motors and control equipment, which is perhaps all of a similar age, it’s worth having a plan in place for when any of the components fail. The good news is that there’s a very good chance that an upgrade can probably be avoided if maintaining the original technology is deemed to be the preferable option.

It’s worth remembering that the automation industry, just like most other industry sectors, commonly shares components between manufacturers. One manufacturer might badge servo motors from another as its own, and exactly the same product is likely to be obtainable from different suppliers. So, when one company says it no longer supports a particular type of motor, it’s not necessarily the end of the story. Someone else might.

For instance, a very popular and reliable range of servo motors, manufactured by a company few engineers are likely to have heard of has been sold over the years by a variety of different suppliers, badged as their own product. The ACM2n range of motors are reliable, cost effective and high performance but for presumably strategic and marketing reasons some suppliers have recently delisted it from their product portfolio. Maintenance engineers wanting to replace an old ACM2n motor can do so easily though. Many specialist servo equipment suppliers, like Motor Technology, can still supply the ACM2n range, with exactly the same motor type coding and documentation, even though engineers may have found that their original supplier no longer supports it.

Motor Technology maintains a database of products and companies that effectively tracks what happens to a company’s products when it merges with or is taken over by a rival. There are even companies that manufacture discontinued products under licence to the same high standard as the originals.

So called legacy products can often be a perfect solution when old servo equipment needs replacing and is not supported by the original manufacturer. A good independent servo specialist, like Motor Technology, will have the capability to guide maintenance engineers to the quickest solution in order to get their applications up and running again as quickly as possible.