The Re-Engineering of Asset Recovery: How Servo Motors Adjusted Their Repair Strategy
When an obsolete drive fails inside a mechanically sound production machine, finding a replacement can become a project involving new communications interfaces, different feedback hardware and recommissioning. Similar failures in an EV charger or energy converter can remove an otherwise serviceable asset from operation, leaving its owner facing costs far beyond the damaged electronics. Recovering the original assembly preserves the control architecture and gives operators time to plan modernisation around operational needs. Yet the visible fault rarely tells the whole story. Repeated temperature changes and electrical stress affect components differently; a damaged semiconductor may sit alongside degraded capacitors, compromised connections or a faulty driver circuit. Engineers need to establish what failed, investigate why, and assess the condition of the remaining circuitry before deciding how to proceed.
Serving customers in more than 15 countries from its Barcelona base, Servo Motors Adjust brings together capabilities that reflect how closely electronics, mechanics and control are connected:
• Servomotor and AC/DC motor repair, rewinding, mechanical restoration and feedback alignment.
• Industrial electronics repair, including servo drives and frequency inverters.
• EV and hybrid battery testing and repair, motor/generator work, and inverter/converter repair.
Its account of repairing Schneider Electric ILM servomotors shows why that breadth matters. With motor, drive electronics, encoder and brake integrated into one unit, reliable recovery requires attention to their interaction. The workshop describes bearing replacement, encoder programming, rotor balancing and electronic inspection, followed by functional testing with the appropriate driver. Passing component checks provides useful evidence, but the mechanical assembly, feedback and control loop must also perform correctly together.
In its discussion of Renault ZOE charging module failures, Servo Motors Adjust considers electrical supply conditions alongside damage to power semiconductors. A repaired converter returned to unresolved electrical or thermal stress remains vulnerable. Across solar and storage installations, where converter availability directly affects energy delivery, the same attention to semiconductor reliability, capacitor condition and thermal management is essential. Each application requires its own validation, with board diagnostics forming part of the wider process of returning equipment to service.
Where possible, Servo Motors Adjust uses Root Cause Analysis (RCA) to investigate the electrical, thermal, mechanical and application-related conditions behind a failure. The team sometimes receives drives or boards that have already been repaired, with little information about the original cause. Replacing a failed component can restore operation while leaving those conditions unresolved. Combining board-level evidence with repair history and operating context helps identify contributing factors, distinguish established causes from possible explanations, and guide corrective action to reduce the risk of recurrence.
Supporting this work is ABI Electronics, a British manufacturer that has developed circuit board test and diagnostic equipment since 1983. Its BoardMaster system combines powered and unpowered diagnostics, component testing and comparison techniques. Engineers can capture procedures and measurements in its TestFlow software, retaining knowledge for subsequent repairs. ABI’s separate RevEng system helps recover circuit connectivity from a reference board for schematic development when original drawings are unavailable.
Servo Motors Adjust describes how BoardMaster contributes to its diagnostic work:
Servo Motors Adjust, LinkedIn testimonial
By combining that evidence with application testing, repair specialists can make informed decisions about recovery and demonstrate whether an assembly performs correctly under the conditions relevant to its return to service. Customers retain equipment, configuration and accumulated engineering knowledge that replacement could require them to recreate. Depending on the equipment and failure, acceptance testing may need to cover insulation, thermal behaviour, feedback accuracy and operation under representative load. Defining those checks is part of the repair decision, alongside establishing whether recovery is technically and economically justified.
For companies developing this capability, ABI’s systems provide tools for the investigation, while Repair Don’t Waste, the movement founded by ABI, connects practitioners with technical resources and shared repair experience. Building that infrastructure matters as automation, transport and energy become increasingly dependent on electronics. A failed circuit board should trigger an engineering investigation before it triggers the retirement of an otherwise serviceable asset.
