Did you ever request an industrial electronic repair report only to have no idea what it actually means?  Many purchasers of electronic repairs are very knowledgeable about electronics, but more than a few are not. Fear not! Knowledge is power and for those folks who don’t have a stron

If you use any kind of industrial electronics, chances are you have also needed to get them repaired from time to time.  Age, damage, heat, moisture – they really are out to get you, and no, you’re not paranoid. Maybe you’ve already had us repair your damaged circuit boards or your pow

Could heat be causing your power supply failures? Very likely and it has a name: “thermal aging”.  Thermal aging (which means heat is making your components get OLD fast!) is an expensive trouble maker. Knowledge is power.  Here  are some things to know about heat and how to protect yo

Is your PLC behaving erratically or suddenly just “lose” its program? Or maybe it faulted and now the red light is on and you can’t get your error codes to clear?  Does any of this mean you will be spending hard-earned money on PLC repairs? These are common problems and concerns.  We h

Controller not working! Machine down! Have you ever had a “Machine Down” crisis in your plant?  Most likely you have, just like our customer, an East Coast U.S.-based beauty product manufacturer just did.   With the holiday season upon them, they needed to be able to fulfill orders on time

Getting ready for your annual or semi-annual plant maintenance shutdown? To keep your budget and schedule on target, make your to-do list as short as possible and focus only on things that can realistically be accomplished during a major shutdown. Everything else can be scheduled durin

Burnt components in Hypertherm drive Ever wonder what happens to your servo drive when the motor is bad or there are line spikes?  Besides the obvious (it stops working) nearly every component inside gets damaged, burnt or blown to bits, often beyond recognition.  What then? What if the pa

Beware! Don’t let your electronics be damaged. Baby it’s cold outside!  You can add the much talked about “polar vortex” to your list of enemies of your electronics.  It’s not that the cold specifically is the problem, but the dry air that comes along with the cold upping

  Broken industrial touch screens such as the one in the picture are a common problem.  What might surprise you is that these units can be repaired and do NOT have to be sent back to the OEM as so many touch screen owners/operators seem to think. These types of units often have cu

Chicken soup is delicious…steaming hot, homemade and swimming with noodles and chunks of tender chicken…you can almost taste it can’t you? Well, I can whip up some mean chicken soup.  Just ask my three buffalo-sized sons! And, I’ve got some chicken soup for you too.  That is, chicken s

Let’s say one of your PLCs is faulting or behaving erratically affecting your manufacturing production.  Besides being frustrated, you also now face some tough choices knowing that your primary objective is to keep production going and to minimize downtime. PLC system troubleshooting c

Are you looking to save energy?  Trying to gain speed and torque control?  Wishing you could control your starting current?  Variable speed or frequency drives can do just that and much more.   Read on for benefits, maintenance, and troubleshooting tips for VFDs. Benefits of a VSD/VFD

Taken for granted until they fail, circuit boards are key to the operation of virtually everything these days.  Many industrial printed circuit boards today are complicated, high value items that are cost effective to repair. If your industrial electronics stop working and you are susp

There are many ways to annihilate your industrial electronics.  Likewise, there are equally as many to protect them.  If you have ever fried your servo drive or your power supply for example, you might think the unit was defective to start with.  Well, maybe.  More likely it was caused

Was there life before programmable logic controllers?  It doesn’t seem like it even though they are relative newcomers to industrial electronics.  Read on to find out more about PLCs whether you already use them or are looking to purchase. These miniature industrial computers are every

Have you ever called a company and gotten an unenthusiastic, uninterested, unconscientious (or maybe just plain unconscious) customer service person?  We all have and it’s an aggravating experience. When it comes to customer service we ALL want to deliver the good news – &#

Burned Power Supply Before Holy Smokes Batman!  This power supply was on fire…literally!  A hair-incinerating event for our west coast equipment manufacturing customer…and one we hope does not happen in your plant.  This summer heat may challenge your ability to keep your equipment from ov

Do you own or operate an offset printing press? If you do, then you’ve probably experienced the irritation (and costliness) of delay time due to web breaks, aborted starts and mechanical or electronic problems.   Press time ain’t cheap and the clock is ticking! ACS can help with the pr

Have you got shelves of unused electronic equipment?  Maybe some boxes of circuit boards or drives or random components no one’s looked at in months, maybe even years?    ACS might be able to take some of that “junk” off your hands. We are building some additional Siemens test fixtures

The trees are losing their leaves, the kids are back in school – autumn is right around the corner.  Which makes me think of the fable about The Ant and the Grasshopper. In case you have forgotten here’s the quickie version:  the Ant was busy during the summer putting away supplies for