HOIST MOTOR REPLACEMENTS Help Slash Downtime, Unplanned Outages

摘要

In June of 2000, at a major coal company in Wyoming's Powder River Basin (PRB), personnel from Flanders Electric Motor Service completed a repair project on a dragline. As goodbyes were being said, the customer casually asked if anything could be done to increase the time between rebuilds on the hoist motors for their P&H 4100 shovels. The hoist motors were suffering from abbreviated service life, the customer said, because the motors were overheating and "roasting out." Because these outages were unplanned, they created excessive service costs, overtime charges to make the repair, more expense to rewind the motors because of insulation failure, and lost production. Another vendor had suggested upgrading the motors and installing fully digital drive systems, but the customer saw this as a very expensive and time-intensive (it would take a week to 10 days) option that was not likely to produce the ROI that they needed.