Most Planned Maintenance schedules focus on the obvious tasks: lubrication, bearings, belts, guarding and general electrical checks. These matter, but ageing PacDrive assets carry risk across a broader set of areas. A PacDrive maintenance schedule is only useful if it reflects how the machine can actually fail Controllers, drives, motors, feedback systems, communications, cable assemblies,

If your ELAU PacDrive M line still runs the original SM series motors, the question is no longer whether to upgrade to SH motors. It’s how long you can afford to wait. PacDrive M obsolescence is a potential risk for many companies if they have no mitigation plans. Like-for-like replacements and compatible spares for SM

The good news from our recent Customer Survey is that 88% of respondents are aware of PacDrive M obsolescence. The not so good news is 60% operate without any formal mitigation plan. This “readiness-gap” does not necessarily call for a costly system replacement. Rather it highlights an urgent need for a properly defined spare-parts strategy

The most revealing number in our ELAU PacDrive 2025 Customer Survey isn’t the breakdown rate. It’s the gap between what sites know and what action they’ve taken Of the 200 UK sites we surveyed, 87.7% know their ELAU PacDrive M hardware is obsolete, but only a few have a plan to address the issue. 60.2%

The evidence has usually disappeared before the diagnosis starts The most useful diagnostic evidence on a PacDrive line has normally gone by the time an engineer begins to look for it. For example, a machine faults mid-shift. However, production needs output so someone acknowledges the alarm, resets the controller or power-cycles the panel and the

Maintenance of lines and machines is vital for minimising breakdowns and unplanned downtime. Understanding our customers’ maintenance strategies and how they maintain their PacDrive systems provides critical insight into their operational resilience. This is particularly important where PacDrive M is concerned as legacy hardware constraints often dictate strategy. Of all the PacDrive maintenance strategies used

Reactive versus predictive maintenance – which is the best strategy? Getting this right is key for any site to ensure operations run smoothly. Here we look at both these and examine the circumstances under which they should be used. Reactive maintenance isn’t automatically wrong Run-to-failure is a legitimate strategy and many plants probably use it

The error code is only the starting point A MC-4 error code tells you what tripped, but it rarely tells you why. When an I²t or a following error appears, it is natural to focus on the drive or motor which triggered it. However, this is where diagnostic time can get lost. The code identifies

Obsolete doesn’t mean unavailable — yet  You can still buy a PacDrive M MC-4 drive today. That’s a potential trap because availability now is not a reliable guide for availability in eighteen months’ time.  PacDrive M production finished in December 2018 and, at the end of December 2024, Schneider Electric ended its official service and repair window. However, C400, C600 controllers, MC-4 drives, SM and SH motors still circulate through distributors and secondary channels. But now there is

Turning ELAU PacDrive Data into Actionable Machine Intelligence   The basic idea: PacDrive machines already hold valuable diagnostic intelligence. Machine Analyser® makes that intelligence available before it disappears, presenting it in a form engineers and managers can act on.   Pre-emptive measures can then be taken to minimise unplanned downtime potentially saving tens of thousands of pounds. As we have seen with their diagnostic codes  ELAU PacDrive M and PacDrive 3 were designed with a different philosophy in