Beware of Condensation!

Sometimes condensation is a good thing. Like when you see beads of sweat rolling down an ice cold glass of lemonade on a hot summer day. Sometimes condensation is a bad thing. Like when your drive controller is colder than the air in your control cabinet, and the resulting condensation damages your machinery.

Electronics and moisture don’t mix well. Make sure you keep your Indramat servos safe from condensation.

Where does condensation come from?

Your machinery cranks out heat while in use, and operating drives, motors, or controllers at excessively high ambient temperatures impedes performance.

You must cool your servos to ensure that they keep working properly. Of course, condensation forms when higher temperatures meet lower temperatures.

Moisture from humidity and condensation can cause problems with your machinery. This is especially true if cooling devices aren’t installed properly.

Keeping your servos cool

The control cabinet allows you to regulate the temperature and control the environment that your servos are in.

You can cool some controllers with air inside of a control cabinet, or air outside of the control cabinet.

Be careful when cooling servos with air from outside the cabinet. This cooling method requires a different type of protection from cooling with air from inside the cabinet.

Your control cabinet is incredibly important. We’ve seen cabinets with the door thrown open in the dog days of summer with a box fan doing it’s best to keep things cool. Of course, even if you manage to cool your servos this way, you can’t prevent condensation from forming.

Preventing condensation

There are a few ways that you can help keep condensation from damaging your servos.

  • Cooling devices should always be installed in a way that prevents condensation from dripping onto controllers.
  • Check the seal on your cabinet. Control cabinets that aren’t sealed properly can lead to condensation inside the cabinet.
  • Your drive should never be colder than the air inside the control cabinet.
  • Run your cooling device even after the unit has been shut down until control cabinet air and equipment are at the same temperature.
  • Never set cooling devices lower than 40°C (104°F).

It’s incredibly important that your climate control cabinet is working properly. Without it you can cause irreversible damage to your motion control system. Call 479-422-0390 for immediate support for Indramat motion control systems.