Servo drive maintenance requires a systematic operation. Multiple aspects such as environmental control, electrical monitoring, and heat dissipation management need to be comprehensively considered and optimized together. Through regular inspections, in-depth maintenance, and timely handling of faults, the service life of the equipment can be significantly extended, generally up to 5 to 8 years. At the same time, the fault-free operation time of the system can be extended by more than 30%. It is recommended that users establish a maintenance file to record the changes of key parameters and the process of fault handling, so as to provide data support for future upgrades or capacity expansions. In the face of complex faults, do not disassemble the servo drive casually. Instead, contact the original manufacturer’s technical support in a timely manner to avoid secondary damage and greater losses.
Here are the specific maintenance items for servo drives:
Working Environment Control
Temperature and Humidity Management: Keep the environmental temperature between 0 and 45°C (refer to the specifications of most drives), and the humidity ≤ 85% RH. Avoid condensation, which may lead to short circuits in the circuit.
Dust Prevention and Cleaning: Regularly clean the heat dissipation holes with compressed air to prevent dust from blocking and affecting heat dissipation. Also, prevent foreign objects from entering the circuit board.
Electrical Connection Inspection
Power Quality: Monitor the fluctuation range of the input voltage (usually it should be stable within ±10% of the rated voltage) to avoid damage to capacitors or IGBT modules caused by sudden voltage changes.
Grounding System: Ensure that the control signal ground is separated from the power ground, and the grounding resistance ≤ 4Ω to prevent electromagnetic interference from causing misoperation.
Cable Status: Check whether the encoder cables and power cables are aged or cracked. The shielding layer should be reliably grounded to avoid signal crosstalk.
Heat Dissipation System Maintenance
Heat Sinks/Fans: Clean the dust on the heat sinks every quarter, and confirm that there is no jamming or abnormal noise in the fans. For liquid cooling systems, check the coolant level and pipeline sealing.
Thermal Design Margin: When operating under long-term high load, it is recommended to monitor the internal temperature of the drive (some models support temperature alarm output), and install external heat dissipation devices if necessary.
Parameter and Software Management
Parameter Backup: After the initial commissioning, export the parameter file. Before repairing hardware faults, be sure to back up the parameters to prevent the loss of parameters and system reconstruction.
Firmware Upgrade: Regularly visit the manufacturer’s official website to check for firmware updates to fix known bugs or improve the performance of the control algorithm.
Log Analysis: Read the operation logs through the upper computer software, pay attention to the overcurrent and overvoltage alarm records, and predict potential faults.
Preventive Testing
Static Test: Under the power-off state, use a multimeter to check the capacitance value of the bus capacitor (usually it should be > 80% of the nominal value) to avoid abnormal DC bus voltage caused by capacitor failure.
Dynamic Test: Perform a step response test under low load conditions, and observe whether the speed/position overshoot exceeds the set threshold.
Fault Handling Principles
Prohibit Live Operation: Before replacing fuses or modules, cut off the main power supply and wait for more than 5 minutes to ensure that the bus capacitor is discharged.
Professional Maintenance: In case of faults such as IGBT tube explosion or damage to the control board chip, contact the original manufacturer or authorized service provider to avoid secondary damage.
Maintenance Cycle Suggestions:
Daily Inspection: Observe the indicator light status before daily operation to confirm that there is no alarm.
In-depth Maintenance: Clean dust, check cables, and verify parameters every quarter.
Annual Calibration: Entrust a third-party laboratory to conduct professional projects such as encoder accuracy calibration and current loop bandwidth testing every year.