Ah, our little green friends…the printed circuit board. Taken for granted until they fail, circuit boards are key to the operation of virtually everything these days. So if you are suspicious, or even absolutely certain, that your circuit board is the problem, you may need some advice as well as circuit board repair or replacement.

Always remember the Electronic Axis of Evil: Moisture, Heat, and Dirt. If you can avoid these, your circuit boards will last longer.

Four Top Reasons For Circuit Board Failure and Tips to Identify The Problems & Causes:

1. Discrete Component Failure. (Includes capacitors, resistors, zener diodes, diodes, GALs, PALs, IC’s, Microprocessors, Driver Chips) Causes of failure: normal component aging, excessive heat, over or under voltage surges and sags, rises in ESR (equivalent series resistance) values, corrosion and drying (esp. of electrolytic capacitors). These problems can sometimes be visible to the naked eye such as blown/burned components or obvious corrosion, but usually these items need to be checked with meters.

2. Power Component Failure. (Includes transformers, transistors, IGBT modules, rectifiers).  Causes of failure: heat, over or under voltage, normal component aging. Some problems can be visible such as exploded components, or, more often, they could look perfectly good and require meter testing of each component.

3. Trace Damage. (These are the conductive pathways, tracks or signal traces etched from copper/silver coated sheets and laminated onto the non-conductive substrate) Causes of failure: power surges, lightning strikes, use of inappropriate acid core solder causing shorts, contamination such as metallic dust. Trace damage is often visible to the naked eye and can often, though not always, be repaired.

4. Physical damage - This is plain, old damage such as when your NASCAR-wannabe forklift driver skewers it like a sausage on a grill. Don’t think it doesn’t happen…we’ve seen it! This is sometimes repairable; replacement is often the only option.

Repairing printed circuit boards can be a bit like surgery: lots of testing, probing and prepping followed by precise repair work and retesting before the patient is ready to go back to work. The good news is, your board is most likely repairable.

Reliability was followed, in descending order, by quality, safety, maintenance, service, price, throughput, technology, noise, speed, and “green”.

Maintenance ranked 4th out of 11 so we know it’s pretty high on your list.  Nobody wants equipment that is difficult or excessively expensive to maintain.  Downtime is lost time and lost time is lost money.  

Save money in the long run by purchasing quality industrial electronic equipment with a good warranty.  And when that warranty runs out, or the OEM does not provide responsive service, send your repairs to a reliable expert. 

The ACS tech team is trained and experienced in the repair of virtually all types of industrial electronics including drives, PLCs, power supplies, controls, encoders, servo motors, CNC equipment, printed circuit boards, touch screens, stepper motors, CRT monitors, test equipment and more.  We service most brands including Yaskawa, Okuma and Mitsubishi.  Rush service is available upon request.

ACS repairs just about any industrial circuit board with highly experienced, expert technicians and fast service. Circuit boards that other repair houses return as unrepairable or beyond economical repair can often be repaired by our highly experienced tech team.

Your circuit boards are evaluated, repaired and returned to you in perfect working order and if your circuit boards cannot be repaired, you don’t pay. Thats right… YOU DON’T PAY ONE PENNY IF WE CANNOT FIX YOUR CIRCUIT BOARDS!

CNC circuit boards, PLC Circuit boards, and other circuit boards that are used in industrial equipment and machinery are our  business. The repair of your industrial circuit boards are covered by a comprehensive one year warranty. Please contact us at 800-605-6419. Email: service@acsindustrial.com so that we can be of service to you.  Or visit us at www.acsindustrial.com.  Our customer service team is ready to help you.

Some FANUC equipment is available for the exchange program getting your machinery back up and running very quickly. Call for information if you want to see if your FANUC item is available for exchange. Find out why many companies only use ACS Industrial for their critical electronic repair needs.

Call ACS for help coordinating an evaluation of your defective FANUC equipment needing electronic repair. A helpful and courteous customer service rep is standing by to help. 800-605-6419