Our Story

A&W Electric, Inc. was founded in 1991 with a simple mission: deliver high-quality electrical and electro-mechanical services to industrial customers who can't afford shortcuts. Over three decades later, that mission drives everything we do.

Based in Charlotte, NC, we have grown from a regional electrical contractor into a comprehensive industrial services provider — repairing and rewinding electric motors, diagnosing and repairing servo motors, servicing pumps and gearboxes, repairing and rewinding transformers, installing and troubleshooting AC/DC drives, and deploying sensor-based predictive maintenance systems.

We are members of EASA (Electrical Apparatus Service Association), which means our motor repair practices meet rigorous industry standards. We are also active members of AWWA, NCRWA, SCRWA, and SC Waters — reflecting our deep experience in the water and wastewater sector.

What We Do

A&W Electric provides a broad range of services under one roof:

• AC and DC electric motor repair, rewind, and sales
• Servo motor repair — Fanuc, Siemens, Yaskawa, Allen Bradley, and more
• Dry-type and oil-filled transformer repair and rewinding
• Specialty coil winding and transformer testing
• Centrifugal pump repair, rebuild, and sales
• Gearbox inspection, repair, and rebuild
• Onsite electro-mechanical repair and field maintenance
• Licensed industrial electrical — NC and SC
• VFD and soft starter installation, programming, and troubleshooting
• RAMS® predictive maintenance sensor platform

Core Values

What we value — and how we show it every day:

Leadership Team

A&W Electric's leadership team brings deep expertise in industrial electrical systems, electro-mechanical repair, operations management, and customer service — united by a shared commitment to keeping your business running.

Tim Hebert

President

As President, Tim Hebert's job is to make sure A&W Electric is a company customers can count on — that the right people, standards, and capabilities are in place long before anyone picks up the phone. When he and his wife Holly purchased the company in 2001, he came from corporate operations, marketing, and sales, and set out to learn the work itself. He holds unlimited electrical contractor licenses in both Carolinas, immersed himself in rotating-equipment science through EASA, and has spent more than 20 years teaching maintenance professionals through the NC Maintenance Technologists school. That grounding shapes how A&W approaches a job. Customers need it fast, Tim will tell you, but what they really need is for it to be right — so the team asks questions until it understands the whole situation rather than the symptom in front of it, then lays out every practical option. A shortcut is never one of them. Under his leadership, A&W has grown from a small regional contractor into a diversified industrial services organization, including decades-long partnerships across the water and wastewater sector. Originally from Maine, Tim moved to Charlotte in 1994 and lives in Mint Hill with Holly; they have two grown sons and two grandchildren.

LinkedIn

Matt Nelson

Chief Operating Officer

As Chief Operating Officer, Matt Nelson is responsible for building the people, processes, and operational discipline that drive A&W Electric's continued growth. He leads the company's Industrial Electrical Services and Industrial Equipment Repair divisions, helping customers execute their most critical projects safely, efficiently, and with minimal downtime. Since joining A&W Electric in 2012 to establish the Industrial Electrical Services Division, Matt has helped transform the company from a small regional contractor into a diversified industrial services organization serving customers throughout the Carolinas — building the Electrical Services Division into a multimillion-dollar operation before being promoted to Vice President of the Electrical Division and, in 2025, Chief Operating Officer. A licensed North Carolina Unlimited Electrical Contractor with 25+ years of experience, Matt has advanced from apprentice electrician to COO, bringing a practical understanding of every level of the organization. He believes great organizations are built by developing people, earning customer trust, and doing the right thing — and lives by a simple standard: "If it's an issue to the customer, it's an issue to us." Outside of work, Matt enjoys offshore fishing, boating, and spending time with his wife and two daughters in Lincoln County, North Carolina.

LinkedIn

Mike Jennings

North Carolina Field Operations Manager

As North Carolina Field Operations Manager, Mike Jennings is responsible for A&W Electric's electrical division field operations — estimating the larger projects, managing the superintendents and project teams, and staying hands-on with field issues from start to finish. A licensed North Carolina journeyman with roughly 45 years in the trade, Mike is the team's go-to for major troubleshooting and complex installations — wire and breaker sizing, load calculations, motor control work, and the medium-voltage VFD commissioning that few others can tackle. His standout work includes a 4,000-amp switchgear changeout at a Charlotte-area pipe manufacturer completed inside a critical 12-hour shutdown window — finished in six — and building that plant's pipe machines from the ground up, with the entire electrical and control systems engineered in-house. Mike reads each customer's priorities — speed, quality, or price — with the conviction that quality supersedes the rest, so customers always feel they got a fair deal that matched what was promised. Competitive by nature, he enjoys hunting, fishing, the outdoors, and time with his children and grandchildren, based in York, South Carolina.

LinkedIn

Randy Maynard

South Carolina Field Operations Manager

As South Carolina Field Operations Manager, Randy Maynard leads customer relations and field operations across the state's Upstate — Greenville and Spartanburg — and Columbia regions, staying close to customers by confirming quotes, scoping and pricing projects, scheduling work, and serving as the senior escalation point for customer issues. With 29 years across the electrical and automation industries, Randy spent 14 years running his own company — sharpening his management and customer-service instincts — before selling the business to Apex Controls. He's the go-to resource for automation and controls: machine wiring, panel building, control wiring, and troubleshooting, with fluency across Allen Bradley and Siemens PLCs, drives, Banner safety devices, and SEW motors, and he especially enjoys partnering with customer engineering teams on capital projects. Holding Michigan Journeyman and Master Electrical Licenses, Randy once led a two-week downtime install that delivered two months' worth of work in a single window, coordinating roughly 20 electricians and multiple subcontractors. He lives by a simple standard: 100% customer satisfaction. Born and raised in Holland, Michigan, and now living in Easley, South Carolina, Randy is an avid outdoorsman who enjoys camping, hiking, hunting, and fishing. He's been happily married to Crystal for 25 years, and the two love traveling together.

LinkedIn

Andrew Fulk

Operations Manager — Repair Division

As Operations Manager of the Repair Division, Andrew Fulk oversees production and job-costing efficiency at A&W Electric's Charlotte service center, managing quoting, production timelines, and customer communication — and he's the person any repair-related customer problem ultimately lands on to resolve. Andrew's path to management runs straight through the shop floor: he started as a winder for electric motors, moved into business-to-business outside sales for rotating equipment repair, and joined A&W Electric in a sales role before stepping into operations, reaching his five-year anniversary with the company in 2025. That hands-on background makes him the team's go-to for problem-solving and "putting out fires," along with vendor management, job costing, quoting, and scheduling, with deep expertise in AC motors — as when he solved a complex issue for a major OEM whose fan motor kept tripping under load by redesigning the motor's winding to increase its horsepower and amperage, meeting the load requirement, boosting the customer's production, and eliminating downtime. Andrew holds an associate's degree in Electrical Systems from CPCC with a focus on motors, controls, and PLC programming, has completed leadership training, and carries EISA certifications. A relationship builder at heart, he takes a service-oriented, passionate approach focused on solving root problems rather than symptoms, so customers walk away feeling relief and confidence that their problem is truly solved. Originally from Raleigh and now living in Albemarle, North Carolina, Andrew is a dedicated family man who coaches his two sons' youth sports teams, especially football.

LinkedIn

Mike Huber

Sales, Marketing & Innovation Manager

As Sales, Marketing & Innovation Manager, Mike Huber leads A&W Electric's sales and marketing efforts — including the creation and maintenance of this website — and drives the company's innovation agenda, applying AI and the latest technologies to keep A&W on the cutting edge. What sets his approach apart is a conviction that customers are best served by technically experienced people, not polished salespeople, so he focuses on developing knowledgeable team members who can walk a plant and genuinely solve problems. With more than 25 years in the industry, Mike spent 23 years running his own company, American MTS, which A&W Electric acquired in June 2025. His expertise centers on the operation and monitoring of rotating assets — the focus of RAMS®, the reliability platform he spent more than a decade developing. He is a named inventor on four U.S. patents from his earlier career at Surface Combustion, and studied computer science and engineering before completing a mechanical engineering path at the University of Toledo. Throughout his career, Mike has helped customers get back up and running when equipment failed unexpectedly, and he holds a simple philosophy: every customer visit should feel like a consultation, and if A&W can't provide real value, there's no reason to be part of the sale. A dedicated customer advocate with extensive customer-focused training, he lives by the belief that it's not about him and not about A&W — it's about the customer and their needs. Originally from Toledo, Ohio, Mike has called the Carolinas home since 2000 and enjoys golfing, boating, and the outdoors.

LinkedIn

Marty Griffin

Account Manager — Eastern Carolinas

As an Account Manager for the Eastern Carolinas, Marty Griffin is responsible for one thing above all: consulting with customers, understanding their problems, and getting them back up and running. He covers the eastern parts of North and South Carolina, pairing deep technical knowledge with a maintenance manager's perspective on what keeps a plant running. With roughly 35 years in industrial equipment — including more than a decade focused on electric motors, drives, servos, pumps, and gearboxes — Marty began with an apprenticeship at Perfect Fit, rose into management for 25-plus years, then spent ten years in motor-shop sales at American MTS before joining A&W Electric in September 2025. Customers lean on him as a consultant — especially on the drive-and-motor compatibility issues that trip others up — and know he'll answer the call nights and weekends, because problems don't keep business hours. He serves a broad mix of industries, with particular focus on food processing, steel mills, municipalities, and industrial plants. Outside of work, Marty is an avid outdoorsman who loves being out on the water and an active leader in his church, serving as a deacon and assistant treasurer, based in Indian Trail, North Carolina.

LinkedIn

Bryan Sanchez

Account Manager — North/Central Carolinas

As an Account Manager for the North and Central Carolinas, Bryan Sanchez is responsible for building customer relationships in the field and making sure downtime stays short across northeastern and central North Carolina, with some South Carolina. He brings a hands-on technical foundation to the sales side: at American MTS, Bryan worked his way up from the shop floor to field service and reliability work, developing real expertise in shaft alignments, motor changeouts, field balancing, and vibration — the kind of know-how that lets him solve problems others get stuck on, as when he dialed in a field-balancing job a customer couldn't get below five mils. He came into the trade through his father, a longtime mechanic, and joined A&W Electric in 2025. Bryan serves plastics, extrusion, fabrication, and coating facilities, working with each customer the way they prefer and keeping them in the loop at every step. His promise is simple: bring him any problem and he'll find a way to get it figured out. Born and raised in Monroe, North Carolina, Bryan stays fit outside of work — running, traveling, and training toward a future Ironman.

LinkedIn

Target Audiences We Serve

• Industrial maintenance managers
• Reliability engineers
• Plant managers
• Procurement teams
• Electrical contractors seeking specialty repair partners
• EASA partner repair shops

Locations

A&W Electric operates two Charlotte facilities. Our Service Center at 4112 Pine Grove Circle, Charlotte, NC 28206 houses our motor, pump, and transformer repair operations along with shipping and receiving. Our Distribution & Administrative Center at 2311 Distribution Center Drive, Suite B, Charlotte, NC 28269 handles administration, inventory, and our Motor Storage Program.

From these two locations we serve customers throughout North Carolina and South Carolina — with onsite services available across our entire service territory.

A&W's EASA-Member Service Center

A&W Electric's fully equipped Service Center in Charlotte, NC provides fast turnaround on repairs to AC and DC electric motors, pumps, gearboxes, blowers, and all rotating apparatus. As an EASA member, our repair practices follow industry-leading standards — ensuring every motor leaves our shop performing at or above OEM specifications.

Need new equipment? Our pricing is always competitive, and we install what we sell — giving you a single point of accountability from equipment selection through startup and commissioning.

AC Motor Repair & Rewind

We repair and rewind all types of AC induction motors — NEMA and IEC frame, single-phase and three-phase, totally enclosed (TEFC), open drip-proof (ODP), explosion-proof, and washdown-duty motors.

• Complete winding rewind using modern insulation materials
• Vacuum-pressure impregnation (VPI) for superior moisture and thermal resistance
• Surge comparison and hi-pot testing after every rewind
• Bearing replacement with precision fit verification
• Dynamic balancing of rotors to ISO 1940 G 1.0 or better
• Failure analysis and root cause reporting

DC Motor Repair & Rewind

DC motor repair requires specialized expertise in armature winding, commutator service, and brush gear. A&W Electric handles the full range of DC motors used in industrial and process applications.

• Armature rewinding and commutator turning
• Field coil repair and replacement
• Brush and brush holder service
• Interpole and compensating winding repair

Medium Voltage Motor Repair

Medium voltage motors (2.3kV–15kV) are high-value assets critical to process operations. Our technicians are experienced in the specialized techniques required for safe and reliable medium voltage motor repair.

• High-voltage winding repair and rewind
• Insulation class upgrades (Class F, H)
• Form coil winding and insertion
• High-potential (hi-pot) and partial discharge testing

Pump Repair

• Centrifugal pump rebuild and repair
• Impeller replacement and dynamic balancing
• Mechanical seal and packing replacement
• Casing and wear ring restoration
• Pump sales and installation from leading manufacturers

Gearbox Repair

• Gearbox inspection, disassembly, and rebuild
• Gear and bearing replacement
• Shaft repair and bore restoration
• Machine shop services — keyways, fits, and bushing installation

SEO Keywords We Target

The above terms represent our primary organic search targets for this page.

Industrial & CNC Servo Motor Specialists

Servo motors are high-value, precision components at the heart of CNC machining centers, robotic arms, automated production lines, and precision process control systems. Unlike standard induction motors, servo motors incorporate encoders, resolvers, feedback systems, and precision windings that require specialized knowledge and test equipment to repair correctly.

A&W Electric provides comprehensive servo motor repair services with the technical expertise, tooling, and testing capabilities to restore your servo motors to full OEM performance specifications — getting your CNC equipment, robotics, and production lines back online quickly.

Brands We Service

More...

Don't see your brand? We service many additional servo motor manufacturers — contact us to confirm we can repair yours.

Repair Capabilities

• Stator Winding Repair & Rewind — Complete rewinding of servo motor stators using matched conductor materials and modern insulation systems designed for high-frequency switching environments.
• Encoder & Resolver Service — Encoder replacement, resolver inspection, and feedback system verification. Compatibility testing with your drive system prior to reinstallation.
• Bearing Replacement — Precision bearing selection and installation. Many servo motors use special low-noise, low-vibration bearings — we source the correct specification.
• Rotor Inspection & Repair — Permanent magnet rotor inspection, demagnetization detection, and re-magnetization where applicable.
• Brake Service — Integral holding brake inspection, lining replacement, and gap adjustment.
• Shaft & Coupling Repair — Shaft straightening, worn keyway repair, and coupling surface restoration.
• Thermal Protection Replacement — PTC thermistors, thermal cutouts, and embedded temperature sensors.
• Feedback Cable & Connector Service — Encoder cable inspection, connector replacement, and shield integrity verification.

Common Servo Motor Failures

• Encoder failure — the most frequent cause of "servo fault" alarms
• Bearing failure due to age, contamination, or electrical pitting (EDM damage)
• Winding insulation breakdown from moisture ingress or thermal aging
• Rotor demagnetization from overtemperature events
• Brake wear causing holding torque loss
• Shaft seal failure allowing contamination
• Feedback system intermittent faults causing positioning errors

Testing Equipment & Capabilities

Repair Process

• 1. Intake & Evaluation — Your servo motor is photographed, tagged, and evaluated by a specialist. We document the failure mode and provide a written repair estimate before any work begins.
• 2. Disassembly & Inspection — Complete disassembly with photographic documentation. Dimensional checks on all bearing fits, shaft runout, and coupling surfaces.
• 3. Repair & Rebuild — Only failed components are replaced. We use OEM-equivalent or superior replacement parts. Rewinds are performed to matched OEM specifications.
• 4. Testing — Every servo motor is tested before shipment using our full test suite. Encoder signals are verified. No-load electrical tests confirm winding integrity.
• 5. Documentation & Return — Full test documentation is provided with every repair. Your servo is packaged to prevent shipping damage and returned or available for pickup.

Request a Servo Repair Quote

To get started quickly, have the following information ready: motor brand and model number, encoder type and part number if known, description of the failure or alarm code, and whether you need emergency or standard turnaround.

You can upload encoder photos and nameplate images using our contact form, or call us directly for immediate assistance.

Industrial Transformer Specialists

Transformers are at the heart of modern power systems. When a transformer fails — due to insulation breakdown, overheating, contamination, moisture, loose connections, vibration, or overloading — the cost of unplanned downtime is substantial. Professional transformer repair, rewinding, and testing services are critical for long-term reliability, safety, and efficiency.

A&W Electric provides comprehensive transformer repair services for dry-type and oil-filled units used in industrial, municipal, and commercial environments. Our skilled technicians deliver complete solutions both onsite and in our fully equipped repair center.

Transformer Types We Service

• Dry-type transformers (VPI, VPE, Cast Coil, Open Wound)
• Oil-filled transformers and substation transformers
• Pad mount transformers
• Inductors, reactors, chokes, coils, and magnetics
• Autotransformers and custom wound components
• Obsolete units requiring reverse engineering

Repair Capabilities

• Transformer Rewinding & Coil Rewinding — Rewind primary, secondary, and tertiary windings using modern insulation systems, upgraded conductor materials, and engineered winding designs to match or exceed OEM performance.
• Core & Coil Replacements — Complete core and coil builds for damaged, shorted, or burned units. Redesign options for efficiency improvements.
• Insulation Upgrades & Redesign — Upgrading insulation classes, redesigning coils, and applying modern materials to increase lifespan, reliability, and thermal performance.
• Dry-Type & Oil-Filled Repair — Mechanical restoration, electrical troubleshooting, insulation replacement, and thermal system improvements.
• Oil Processing, Dehydration & Purification — Vacuum dehydration, oil filtration, degassing, and full oil replacement or reconditioning.
• Reverse Engineering — Dimensional and electrical replication, core and coil redesign, and modern material replacements for discontinued parts.

Testing & Diagnostics

Emergency Transformer Repair

When a transformer failure occurs, rapid response is critical. A&W Electric provides expedited repair, onsite diagnostics, and temporary power solutions. Contact us immediately for emergency transformer support.

Transformer Repair Partner Program

A&W Electric works with EASA member shops, electrical contractors, and industrial distributors as a transformer repair partner. If you encounter transformer repairs that fall outside your shop's capabilities — pad mount, medium voltage, oil-filled, specialty windings — we can serve as your white-label repair partner.

Partner inquiries: contact us via the form below or email mhuber@AandWElectric.com

Oil-Filled Transformer Repair & Maintenance

Oil-filled transformers are critical to power distribution, industrial operations, municipal systems, and renewable energy installations. As solar farms and wind generation sites grow, the number of installed oil-filled transformers has increased dramatically — making proper maintenance essential for reliability and safety.

These units depend on high-quality insulating oil to provide cooling, dielectric protection, arc suppression, and moisture control. When transformer oil or internal components degrade, the risk of failure, downtime, and costly outages rises quickly.

Onsite Services

• Cooling System Repairs — Replacement of transformer pumps, coolers, fans, and radiator assemblies. Restoration of proper heat dissipation to prevent overheating and insulation failure.
• Leak Repair & Oil Restoration — Transformer leak detection and repair, oil top-off, filtering, degassing, and full oil replacement to improve dielectric strength and remove moisture and contaminants.
• Bushing Services — Inspection, testing, and replacement of transformer bushings.
• Gauges & Monitoring Device Replacement — Level gauges, temperature sensors, pressure relief devices, and sudden pressure relays.
• Infrared (IR) Thermography — Hot-spot detection, loose connection identification, and failing cooling equipment detection.
• Ultrasonic Testing — Identifies internal arcing, partial discharge, corona, and insulation tracking.
• Load Tap Changer (LTC) Servicing — Internal cleaning, inspection, lubrication, and oil filtration.

Oil Testing, Filling & Replacement

Annual Maintenance Programs

A&W Electric offers structured annual maintenance programs including preventative and predictive maintenance, yearly field testing, detailed transformer health reports, and coordination with your reliability and maintenance teams.

Specialty Coil Winding

Not all coils are standard — and not all winding shops understand the performance requirements of specialty magnetics. A&W Electric manufactures and rebuilds custom coils for applications where precision, durability, and electrical integrity are critical.

We design and wind coils for industrial control circuits, transformers and autotransformers, inductors, reactors, and chokes, motor starting and power-conditioning equipment, high-temperature and high-vibration environments, and legacy systems requiring discontinued coils.

Coil Winding Capabilities

• Copper and aluminum windings
• Layer, random, and segmented windings
• High-temperature insulation systems (Class F, H, C)
• Vacuum-pressure impregnation (VPI)
• Precision resistance and inductance matching
• Emergency and expedited rebuilds
• Engineering support for redesign or optimization

Testing & Diagnostics

Pump Repair & Rebuild

• Centrifugal pump rebuild and repair
• Impeller replacement and dynamic balancing
• Mechanical seal and packing replacement
• Casing and wear ring restoration
• Pump sales — competitive pricing from leading manufacturers
• Pump installation and commissioning
• Failure analysis and root cause reporting

Gearbox Repair

• Gearbox inspection, disassembly, and rebuild
• Gear and bearing replacement
• Shaft repair and bore restoration
• Machine shop services — keyways, fits, and bushing installation

Blower Service

• Positive displacement blower repair
• Blower casing inspection and repair
• Rotor lobe inspection and replacement
• Bearing and seal replacement

We Come to You

A&W Electric is uniquely prepared to handle onsite repairs and maintenance for your electro-mechanical equipment. Large motors, pumps, and industrial systems cannot always be easily disconnected and transported to a service center. Our field technicians arrive equipped to diagnose, repair, and verify performance on your equipment in place — minimizing your downtime.

Onsite Services

• Onsite motor troubleshooting and repair
• Pump maintenance and field repair
• VFD installation, programming, and troubleshooting
• Soft start installation and service
• Industrial controls troubleshooting and repair
• Motor control center (MCC) maintenance and repair
• Infrared thermography and electrical inspections
• Equipment relocation — disconnection and reconnection
• Vibration analysis and alignment verification
• New electrical service installation

Emergency Response

When critical equipment fails, every hour of downtime costs money. A&W Electric provides emergency onsite response throughout NC and SC. Call us and we dispatch a qualified technician as fast as possible.

Planned Shutdowns & Outage Support

Industrial shutdowns are high-stakes, time-compressed events. Every hour of planned downtime is a cost — and every overrun is a crisis. A&W Electric specializes in executing electrical scope during planned outages under compressed schedules, providing the manpower, coordination, and technical expertise to complete work on time and return your facility to production.

What We Execute During Shutdowns

• Electrical disconnections and reconnections for equipment changeouts
• MCC modifications, breaker replacements, and panel work
• Transformer replacements and switchgear work
• Machine line electrical upgrades and reconfigurations
• Conduit and wiring installations under compressed schedules
• Controls and instrumentation work during outage windows
• Power restoration testing and startup verification

Multi-Shift & 24/7 Support

We staff shutdowns with multiple shifts when the schedule demands it — keeping work moving around the clock without the quality drop-off that comes from fatigued crews. Our supervisors maintain continuity across shifts so no time is lost to handoffs.

Coordination & Planning

We work from your shutdown schedule and integrate with your maintenance team, contractors, and OEM representatives. Our pre-shutdown planning process identifies material needs, manpower requirements, and sequencing well in advance so the outage window is spent executing — not scrambling.

Working Inside Active Facilities

Brownfield installations — electrical work inside operating plants — demand a different level of discipline than greenfield construction. Production cannot stop. Existing systems cannot be disrupted. Workers and equipment must be protected. A&W Electric has the experience to execute complex electrical installations inside active manufacturing environments safely and efficiently.

Plant Expansion Services

• New production line electrical installations within operating facilities
• Power distribution extensions and facility electrical capacity additions
• MCC additions and feeder installations
• Phased electrical installations sequenced around production schedules
• Temporary power systems to maintain production during transition
• Coordination with production, maintenance, and safety teams

Brownfield Discipline

Working around active production requires strict coordination, lockout/tagout discipline, and constant awareness of plant operations. Our supervisors are experienced in brownfield environments and understand how to sequence work to minimize disruption while maintaining schedule and quality.

Coordination & Safety

We integrate with your facility safety program, work within your permit systems, and coordinate daily with your operations and maintenance teams. Our goal is to be invisible to production while delivering the electrical scope on time and to specification.

Industrial Electrical Installation & Projects

A&W Electric manages industrial electrical projects from design through final inspection. Our licensed electricians understand the unique demands of manufacturing environments — clean power, motor loads, VFD harmonics, and process control — not just commercial wiring.

Services

• Industrial equipment relocation — disconnection, re-routing, and reconnection
• New construction — design-build and design-assist for manufacturing plants
• Lighting upgrades — LED conversions, lighting control systems, high-bay fixtures
• Electrical system upgrades and capacity additions
• Shutdown and turnaround electrical support

Expert VFD & Controls Installation

A&W Electric's electricians are experienced with the full range of industrial control equipment — from basic starters to complex VFD networks with PLC integration. This technical depth, combined with our electro-mechanical background, means we can troubleshoot problems that other contractors can't.

Services

• VFD installation, programming, and startup for pumps, fans, compressors, and process equipment
• Soft starter installation and commissioning
• Motor control center (MCC) installation, modification, and maintenance
• PLC and industrial controls panel wiring
• Control system troubleshooting — from simple relay logic to complex PLC programs
• Drive harmonics mitigation — line reactors, filters, and isolation transformers
• Remote monitoring and communication (Ethernet/IP, DeviceNet, Modbus)

Industrial Power Distribution

Reliable power distribution is the backbone of every industrial facility. A&W Electric designs, installs, and maintains the complete power distribution infrastructure — from the utility entrance to individual machine connections.

Services

• Main service upgrades and utility coordination
• Switchgear installation and maintenance
• Panelboards and load centers
• Bus duct and cable tray systems
• Transformer installation and integration
• Power factor correction
• Short circuit and coordination studies support
• Arc flash hazard analysis support
• Generator and transfer switch installation
• UPS system installation and integration

Emergency Electrical Response

When your plant's electrical system fails, every hour of downtime has a real cost. A&W Electric provides emergency response for industrial and commercial electrical failures throughout NC and SC. Our experienced electricians troubleshoot and restore power quickly and safely.

Emergency Services

• Electrical fault finding and repair
• Breaker and fuse failures
• Motor and drive failures
• Control circuit troubleshooting
• Transformer failures and temporary power
• Lighting system failures
• MCC and panel failures
• Emergency generator support

The Platform Behind the Service

RAMS® — the Reliable Asset Management System — began in 2017 as a sensor dashboard for vibration and temperature monitoring and has grown into a comprehensive asset-management platform. It catalogs machines and components, schedules recurring PMs, tracks spare-parts inventory, and creates work orders, with a mobile app that lets technicians scan an asset's QR code and log any type of data or completed task.

One of the platform's key strengths is that it's sensor-agnostic — not tied to any single brand or sensor type. That lets A&W deploy the best, latest sensing technology for each application and monitor a wide range of metrics: vibration, temperature, current, pressure, flow, humidity, ultrasonic sound, level detection, and more.

Why As-a-Service Makes Sense

Building a predictive-maintenance program in-house means buying hardware, standing up software, and hiring or training vibration and reliability specialists — a significant investment before you see a single insight. RAMS® as a Service removes those barriers: A&W already has the platform, the hardware supply chain, and the specialists. You get a mature, expert-run program from day one, scaled to exactly the assets you care about, for a predictable monthly cost.

Frequently Asked Questions

A Viable Spare Changes Everything

Motors sitting unmanaged in your facility — on dirty floors, near vibrating equipment, exposed to moisture and pests — are not true spares. They are liabilities. When failure strikes, an untested, degraded spare can make a bad situation catastrophic.

A&W Electric's off-site Motor Storage Program is an active reliability investment, not just a parking spot. Your assets are maintained, documented, and ready to perform the moment you need them.

We also store new motors — whether purchased as planned spares or awaiting scheduled installation — protecting your investment from day one.

Core Storage Standards — Built for Reliability

Optional Upgrades — Enhanced Protection

New AC / DC Motors at Competitive Pricing

A&W Electric has partnered with leading motor manufacturers and distributors to offer a wide selection of new motors at very competitive pricing. You can browse by catalog number or let our sales engineers guide you to the correct selection. It's important to remember that most newer motors are required to meet current US efficiency standards (NEMA Premium / IE3) and may have changed frame sizes or have an extended space requirement.

Brands We Carry

Browse by catalog number or contact our sales team with your HP, voltage, frame size, enclosure type, and application details for a fast competitive quote.

We Sell & Install

When you buy equipment from A&W Electric, we install it — ensuring proper alignment, electrical connection, startup testing, and commissioning. You get a single point of accountability from selection through production.

Request Pricing

Contact our sales team with your specifications — HP/kW, voltage, frame, enclosure, and application details — and we'll provide a competitive quote quickly.

New Pumps & Blowers at Competitive Pricing

In addition to repairing nearly any brand of pump or blower, A&W Electric offers special pricing on new pumps from the industry's leading manufacturers. Whether you need a centrifugal pump for a water treatment application, a submersible for wastewater, or a positive displacement blower, our sales team can source the right product quickly.

Brands We Carry

Provide your flow rate, head, fluid type, and installation details and our sales team will respond with a competitive quote.

We Sell & Install

When you buy equipment from A&W Electric, we install it — ensuring proper alignment, electrical connection, startup testing, and commissioning. You get a single point of accountability from selection through production.

Request Pricing

Contact our sales team with your specifications — HP/kW, voltage, frame, enclosure, and application details — and we'll provide a competitive quote quickly.

New Variable Frequency Drives at Competitive Pricing

A&W Electric supplies and installs Variable Frequency Drives (VFDs) from the industry's leading manufacturers. Every drive we sell is installed by our licensed electricians and programmed and commissioned by our team — giving you a single point of accountability from specification through startup. We have experience with pump, fan, compressor, and process equipment applications across a wide range of HP and voltage ratings.

Brands We Carry

Provide your motor HP, voltage, application type, and any communication requirements and our team will recommend the right drive at a competitive price.

We Sell & Install

When you buy equipment from A&W Electric, we install it — ensuring proper alignment, electrical connection, startup testing, and commissioning. You get a single point of accountability from selection through production.

Request Pricing

Contact our sales team with your specifications — HP/kW, voltage, frame, enclosure, and application details — and we'll provide a competitive quote quickly.

Technical Article

An electric motor rarely fails without warning. Nearly every failure traces back to one of a handful of root causes — and most are detectable, and preventable, long before they shut down your line. Here are the seven most common, what causes them, the warning signs, and what to do about each.

1. Insulation Breakdown

The winding insulation is the heart of a motor's electrical integrity, and its breakdown is one of the leading causes of failure. Over time, heat, moisture, chemical contamination, voltage spikes, and simple age degrade the insulation between windings and to ground. Once it weakens enough, you get a turn-to-turn short, a phase-to-phase short, or a ground fault — and the motor is down.

Warning signs: falling insulation resistance (Megger) readings, tripped ground-fault protection, a burnt-insulation smell, or intermittent tripping under load.

What to do: Trend insulation resistance over time rather than relying on a single reading — a downward trend is your early warning. Keep motors clean and dry, address moisture sources, and protect against voltage transients. When resistance drops below safe thresholds, schedule a rewind before it becomes an unplanned outage.

2. Bearing Failure

Bearings are responsible for an estimated half of all motor failures. They fail from improper lubrication (too much, too little, or the wrong grease), contamination, misalignment, vibration, and normal wear. Because a failing bearing generates heat and vibration that damages the rest of the motor, catching it early matters enormously.

Warning signs: rising vibration levels, audible noise (growling, grinding), elevated bearing-housing temperature, or grease leakage.

What to do: Follow a disciplined lubrication schedule with the correct grease and quantity. Monitor vibration and temperature — this is exactly where sensor-based predictive maintenance pays for itself, flagging a degrading bearing weeks before failure. Address misalignment and imbalance promptly, since both drive bearings to early graves.

3. Overloading

When a motor is asked to deliver more torque than it's rated for, it draws excess current and overheats. Sustained overloading cooks the insulation and shortens motor life dramatically — a rule of thumb holds that every 10°C of additional winding temperature roughly halves insulation life.

Warning signs: overload relays tripping, higher-than-nameplate current draw, elevated motor temperature, or a process change that increased the load.

What to do: Verify the motor is correctly sized for the actual load, and confirm overload protection is set properly. Investigate any mechanical changes — a worn pump, a tightening bearing, or a process change — that may be raising the load beyond design.

4. Voltage Issues & Power Quality

Motors are sensitive to the quality of the power feeding them. Voltage imbalance between phases, under- or over-voltage, harmonics, and transients all generate excess heat and stress. A voltage imbalance of just a few percent can produce a disproportionately large current imbalance and localized overheating in the windings.

Warning signs: unequal phase currents, excess heat with no obvious mechanical cause, nuisance tripping, or humming.

What to do: Measure voltage at the motor terminals across all phases under load. Correct imbalance at its source, address loose connections, and evaluate harmonics where VFDs and non-linear loads are present. Clean, balanced power is one of the cheapest forms of motor life extension.

5. Contamination

Dirt, dust, moisture, oil, and chemical exposure are silent motor killers. Contamination clogs cooling passages and causes the motor to run hot, coats windings and accelerates insulation breakdown, and works its way into bearings where it destroys them. In dusty or wet environments, contamination is often the dominant failure mode.

Warning signs: visible buildup on the motor exterior and vents, elevated running temperature, or repeated bearing and insulation issues in a harsh environment.

What to do: Match the motor enclosure to the environment (TEFC, washdown-duty, etc.), keep cooling surfaces and vents clean, and seal out moisture and contaminants. For critical spares, proper storage matters just as much as in-service protection.

6. Misalignment & Imbalance

When a motor shaft isn't precisely aligned with the driven equipment — or when a rotating component is out of balance — the resulting forces hammer the bearings, seals, and shaft. Misalignment and imbalance are among the most common mechanical root causes of premature bearing and coupling failure.

Warning signs: vibration (often at characteristic frequencies), coupling wear, repeated bearing failures, or seal leakage.

What to do: Use precision laser alignment rather than straightedge-and-feel methods, and balance rotating assemblies to spec. Vibration analysis can distinguish misalignment from imbalance from looseness, pointing you straight to the fix rather than guessing.

7. Improper Repair or Installation

How a motor is repaired and installed determines how long it lasts. Improper rewind practices that overheat the core, incorrect bearing fits, poor alignment at installation, wrong-direction rotation, and undersized feeders all set a motor up for early failure. A motor is only as reliable as the last hands that worked on it.

Warning signs: a motor that fails soon after being returned to service, runs hot, or never quite performs like it should.

What to do: Insist on repairs performed to EASA standards, with core testing, controlled rewind processes, proper bearing fitting, and full electrical testing before the motor leaves the shop. Verify alignment, rotation, and electrical connections at installation. The right repair partner is the difference between a motor that lasts years and one that comes back in months.

The Bottom Line

Most motor failures don't come out of nowhere — they announce themselves through heat, vibration, current, and insulation trends long before they take a process offline. A proactive program of regular testing, condition monitoring, clean power, and quality repair turns sudden, expensive failures into planned, manageable maintenance.

That's exactly what A&W Electric is built to help you do — from EASA-standard motor repair and rewind to sensor-based predictive maintenance through our RAMS® platform.

Technical Article

Bearings cause roughly half of all electric motor failures — but the bearing is usually the victim, not the culprit. Replace it without finding the root cause and you'll be back in the same spot in a few months. The good news: a failed bearing is a record of how it died. The wear patterns, discoloration, and damage tell you exactly what went wrong, if you know how to read them. Here's how to diagnose the five most common root causes.

Start by Reading the Evidence

Before you scrap a failed bearing, inspect it. The raceways, rolling elements, cage, and seals each carry clues. Note where the damage is (loaded zone vs. all the way around), its pattern (uniform, localized, fluted), the color (polished, discolored, blued), and the presence of debris or moisture. Photograph it. Those details are what separate "the bearing failed" from "here's why the bearing failed — and here's how to stop it from happening again."

1. Contamination

Contamination is the single most common bearing killer. Dirt, grit, water, or process chemicals get past the seals and into the lubricant, where hard particles dent and abrade the raceways and moisture corrodes them.

What you'll see: dull, sandblasted-looking raceways; fine scratches running in the direction of rotation; dents (denting from particles is called "debris denting"); rust or etching from moisture. The damage is usually spread around the full raceway rather than confined to one spot.

Root cause & fix: failed or wrong seals, dirty grease, contaminated work practices during installation, or a harsh environment. Use proper seals for the environment, keep lubricant and tools clean, and seal out moisture. In wet or dusty plants, sealed or shielded bearings and the right enclosure make a lasting difference.

2. Misalignment

When the shaft and the bearing bore aren't true to each other — or the motor isn't aligned to the driven load — the bearing carries load it was never meant to.

What you'll see: a wear path that runs at an angle across the raceway, or a load zone shifted to one side. On ball bearings, an elliptical or diagonal ball path is a classic misalignment signature. You may also see cage wear and overheating.

Root cause & fix: poor shaft-to-coupling alignment, a cocked bearing pressed on crooked, a bent shaft, or soft foot. Correct with precision laser alignment, proper mounting technique, and verification that the housing and shaft shoulders are square.

3. Overload & Improper Lubrication

Too much load — or the wrong amount of the wrong lubricant — overworks a bearing and breaks down the oil film that keeps metal from touching metal. This is where fatigue spalling begins.

What you'll see: spalling (flaking and pitting) in the loaded zone, surface fatigue, and discoloration from heat. Over-greasing shows up as churned, darkened grease and heat damage; under-lubrication shows up as polished, glazed, or blued surfaces where the film failed entirely.

Root cause & fix: excessive radial or thrust load, belt over-tensioning, a degrading driven component, or a lubrication program that's off — wrong grease, wrong quantity, or wrong interval. Confirm correct sizing and load, and follow a disciplined lubrication schedule with the right product in the right amount.

4. Electrical Damage (Fluting & Frosting)

This one is increasingly common with VFD-driven motors. Stray shaft currents discharge through the bearing, each tiny arc pitting the raceway. Over time this produces a distinctive washboard pattern.

What you'll see: "fluting" — evenly spaced lines or ripples across the raceway, like a tiny washboard — and a frosted, gray-matte appearance on the rolling surfaces from countless micro-arcs. Under magnification you can spot the individual pits.

Root cause & fix: shaft voltage from VFD common-mode currents, or grounding/bonding problems. Solutions include shaft grounding rings, insulated bearings, proper VFD cabling and grounding, and common-mode filtering. If you're seeing fluting on a drive-fed motor, treat it as an electrical problem, not a mechanical one — a new bearing alone won't fix it.

5. Improper Mounting & Fit

How a bearing is installed often determines how it dies. The wrong fit, force applied through the wrong ring, or impact during mounting all leave marks.

What you'll see: brinelling (dents in the raceway at ball spacing) from impact during installation; a fit that's too tight reduces internal clearance and causes overheating; too loose allows the race to spin and wear the shaft or housing. Damage to the cage from mishandling is also common.

Root cause & fix: driving the bearing on by hitting the wrong ring, using improper tools, or wrong shaft/housing tolerances. Mount with proper heating or a hydraulic/arbor press, apply force only through the ring being fitted, and verify shaft and housing dimensions against spec.

From Diagnosis to Prevention

Reading a failed bearing tells you what to fix. Keeping it from failing again is where condition monitoring comes in: vibration analysis catches a degrading bearing weeks before failure, temperature trending flags lubrication and load problems, and a disciplined lubrication and alignment program eliminates the most common root causes before they start.

When A&W Electric repairs a motor, we don't just replace the bearing — we look for why it failed and address the root cause, so the repair lasts. And through our RAMS® predictive maintenance platform, we help you catch the next one before it ever takes your process down.

Technical Article

Every plant with critical rotating equipment keeps spare motors on hand for exactly one reason: to eliminate downtime when something fails. But a spare that hasn't been properly stored and maintained isn't a spare at all — it's an unknown. Here's why motor storage maintenance matters, what happens when it's skipped, and what a properly managed spare actually looks like.

The Spare That Wasn't Ready

It's a familiar story on a plant floor: a critical motor fails, the spare gets pulled from the shelf, installed, and the line is back up — for nine days. Then it fails too. The spare had been sitting untouched for years, exposed to shop floor conditions, and nobody knew until it was needed that it was no longer viable. The downtime it was supposed to prevent happened anyway, compounded by the cost of a second failure and a second scramble for parts.

This scenario repeats across industrial facilities more often than most maintenance teams would like to admit. A motor sitting unmanaged — on a dirty floor, near vibrating equipment, exposed to moisture and pests — isn't a true spare. It's a liability wearing the disguise of insurance.

Why Unmanaged Storage Degrades a Motor

Electric motors are precision assemblies, and several failure modes develop quietly in storage, long before the motor ever turns a shaft in service:

• Bearing brinelling from vibration. A motor stored near running equipment — compressors, fans, forklifts passing by — absorbs that vibration through its bearings. Because the shaft isn't rotating, the balls or rollers sit in one spot and press false indentations into the raceway. The damage looks identical to impact brinelling, and it can render a bearing unfit for service before the motor is ever installed.
• Insulation degradation from moisture. Humidity finds its way into windings over time, especially in uncontrolled environments. Moisture lowers insulation resistance and, in serious cases, sets the stage for a winding failure within the first hours of operation — precisely when you can least afford it.
• Corrosion and contamination. Dust, coolant mist, and airborne chemicals from a shop floor settle into windings, bearings, and terminal boxes. Contamination accelerates wear and can compromise electrical clearances.
• Rodent and pest damage. Motor housings make attractive nesting sites. Rodent-chewed windings and nesting debris packed into a motor are a surprisingly common — and completely preventable — cause of a "spare" failing on arrival.
• Grease migration and bearing flat spots. Without periodic shaft rotation, grease can migrate away from the load zone and settle unevenly, and stationary bearings are more prone to developing flat spots over extended idle periods.

None of these failure modes are visible from the outside. A motor can look pristine on a shelf and still be unfit to run — which is exactly what makes unmanaged storage so dangerous. You don't find out until the moment you need it most.

What Proper Motor Storage Maintenance Actually Requires

Turning a stored motor into a genuinely viable spare takes an active maintenance program, not just a dry corner of the warehouse. The core elements include:

• A clean, controlled environment. Storage free from shop floor contamination, coolant, dust, and chemical exposure that degrades insulation and bearing integrity over time.
• Vibration isolation. Motors stored away from running equipment, ideally on vibration-absorbing isolation matting, to eliminate false brinelling before it starts.
• Pest exclusion. Sealed, secured storage with active pest control protocols to prevent rodent damage.
• Scheduled shaft rotation. Manufacturers generally recommend monthly shaft rotation for stored motors to redistribute grease and prevent flat spots — a step that's easy to skip and costly to neglect.
• Periodic insulation resistance testing. Quarterly Megger testing catches moisture ingress and insulation breakdown while there's still time to address it, rather than discovering it on startup.
• Repair validation before storage. A motor coming back from a repair should be inspected and electrically tested before it goes on the shelf — confirming it's genuinely viable, not just assumed to be.
• Tracking and documentation. Every stored motor should have a record of nameplate data, repair history, test results, and rotation schedule, so its true condition is known at a glance rather than guessed at under pressure.
• Climate control for sensitive units. Larger frames and high-humidity environments often warrant full climate control or internal space heaters to keep winding temperature slightly above ambient and prevent condensation.

The Warranty Angle Most Plants Overlook

Proper storage maintenance isn't just about preventing failure — it also protects the value of the asset itself. A motor's warranty typically starts at the date of delivery to your facility, not the date it was repaired or purchased. A motor that sits improperly stored for an extended period can quietly burn through warranty coverage before it's ever installed. Motors stored under a professionally managed program, by contrast, can carry extended warranty coverage that starts at the point of actual delivery — meaning the coverage is still there the day you need it.

Free Scheduled Delivery vs. an Unplanned Scramble

The value of a properly maintained spare shows up most clearly in the moment of failure. A tracked, tested, rotation-current motor can be dispatched with confidence — often with same-day or next-day delivery from a managed storage program — instead of a maintenance team discovering, in the middle of an outage, that the "spare" they were counting on needs its own repair before it can go in.

Bottom Line

A spare motor is only as good as the program behind it. Buying or repairing a spare and setting it on a shelf accomplishes nothing if vibration, moisture, pests, or a lack of rotation quietly disqualify it before you ever need it. Proper motor storage maintenance — climate control, vibration isolation, scheduled rotation, periodic testing, and documentation — is what turns a shelved motor into a genuine, ready-to-perform reliability asset.

Technical Article

When a CNC machine throws a servo fault and drops out of production, the encoder is the first suspect — and usually the right one. The encoder is the servo motor’s feedback device, telling the drive exactly where the shaft is and how fast it’s turning. When it degrades, the drive loses its reference and faults out. Here’s what causes encoder failure, how to recognize it, and what your repair options are.

What the Encoder Does — and Why It’s Vulnerable

A servo encoder reports shaft position and speed back to the drive hundreds of thousands of times per second. That precision is what makes servo motion possible — and it’s also what makes the encoder the most failure-prone part of the motor. It packs delicate optics or magnetics, fine electronics, and a memory chip into a small package mounted on the back of a motor that lives in a hot, vibrating, often contaminated industrial environment.

Encoders come in several types — optical, magnetic, resolver, and absolute (single- and multi-turn) — and each has its own failure tendencies, but the root causes overlap heavily.

Common Causes of Encoder Failure

Heat. Excess motor temperature is the number-one enemy of encoder electronics. A motor running hot from overload, poor cooling, or a failing bearing slowly cooks the encoder board.

Vibration and shock. Mechanical vibration loosens connections, cracks solder joints, and can shift the encoder disk or magnet out of alignment. A dropped or impacted motor is a classic cause.

Contamination. Coolant, oil, and conductive dust migrate into the encoder housing and interfere with optical or magnetic sensing — a frequent problem on CNC machines flooded with cutting fluid.

Battery loss on absolute encoders. Multi-turn absolute encoders rely on a backup battery to retain position counts. A dead battery wipes stored position, throwing an alarm that requires re-homing or re-zeroing.

Electrical damage. Voltage spikes, miswiring, and ground faults can destroy encoder electronics instantly. Cable damage — flexing, crushing, or chafing of the feedback cable — is also extremely common on machines with moving axes.

Symptoms to Watch For

Servo fault or feedback-loss alarms on the control, erratic or jerky axis motion, position drift or loss of home reference, the axis running away or failing to hold position, and intermittent faults that come and go with temperature or machine movement. Intermittent faults often point to a marginal cable or connector rather than a dead encoder.

Repair vs. Replace

Many encoder problems are repairable at far less cost than a new servo motor or OEM encoder — which can carry long lead times. Depending on the failure, repair may involve replacing the encoder module, re-aligning or re-phasing it to the motor, replacing the backup battery and recovering position data, repairing the feedback cable or connector, or sourcing a compatible replacement encoder.

The key is proper testing and re-phasing: an encoder must be precisely aligned to the motor’s rotor and electrically matched to the drive, or the motor will run rough or not at all. This is specialized work that requires the right test equipment and experience with the major brands — Fanuc, Siemens, Yaskawa, Allen Bradley, Indramat, Mitsubishi, and others.

Get Your Machine Back in Production

A faulted servo doesn’t have to mean a long wait for an OEM replacement. With proper diagnosis, many encoder failures can be repaired and the motor fully tested and re-phased before it ships — often a fraction of the cost and lead time of new.

A&W Electric repairs servo motors across all the major brands, with encoder replacement, re-phasing, and full testing performed before any motor leaves the shop.

Technical Article

A transformer can run for decades — or fail catastrophically and take your facility down for weeks. The difference almost always comes down to insulation. The windings, the insulating paper, and (in oil-filled units) the oil itself are what stand between normal operation and a destructive internal fault. The encouraging part: insulation rarely fails without warning. Here are the signs of degradation and the tests that catch them early.

Why Insulation Degrades

Transformer insulation — cellulose paper, varnish, and dielectric oil — ages from heat, moisture, oxygen, electrical stress, and contamination. Every overload cycle and every degree of excess temperature accelerates the chemistry. As insulation breaks down, it loses dielectric strength until it can no longer withstand normal operating voltage, and an internal short follows.

The two biggest accelerators are heat and moisture. A common rule of thumb holds that insulation life roughly halves for every 8–10°C of sustained over-temperature, and moisture both lowers dielectric strength directly and speeds up the aging of the paper.

Warning Signs of Failing Insulation

Dry-type transformers: discoloration or charring of windings, a burnt smell, visible cracking or flaking of insulation, dust and contamination buildup on windings, and rising temperature readings.

Oil-filled transformers: discolored or acidic oil, moisture in the oil, unusual noise (buzzing or crackling), elevated operating temperature, and oil leaks. Many oil-filled warning signs are invisible from the outside — which is exactly why oil testing matters.

Both types: nuisance protective trips, rising load losses, and any history of through-faults or overloads that stressed the insulation.

The Tests That Catch It Early

Insulation resistance (Megger) and Polarization Index: a fundamental check of insulation health; trending the values over time reveals degradation before failure.

Dissolved Gas Analysis (DGA): for oil-filled units, the single most powerful diagnostic. Specific gases dissolved in the oil reveal overheating, arcing, and partial discharge happening inside the tank — often long before any external symptom appears.

Oil quality testing: dielectric breakdown voltage, moisture content, acidity, and power factor reveal how much life is left in the oil and paper.

Power factor / tan delta and turns-ratio testing: detect insulation deterioration and winding problems that other tests miss.

Infrared thermography: spots hot connections and cooling problems on energized units before they cause damage.

Building a Maintenance Program

The goal is to move from reacting to failures to catching them on a schedule. A structured program — routine insulation testing, annual or semi-annual oil analysis on oil-filled units, infrared scans, and trending of all results over time — turns a potential catastrophic failure into a planned repair or refurbishment during scheduled downtime.

Catch It Before It Fails

A failed transformer is one of the most disruptive and expensive events a facility can face, with replacement lead times often stretching into months. Insulation testing and oil analysis are inexpensive insurance against exactly that.

A&W Electric provides transformer repair, rewinding, testing, and oil-filled transformer services — including DGA, oil processing, and structured annual maintenance programs — to keep your units healthy and catch problems early.

Technical Article

If a pump sounds like it’s pumping marbles or gravel, it’s almost certainly cavitating — and every minute it runs that way, it’s eroding the impeller, hammering the bearings and seals, and wasting energy. Cavitation is one of the most common and most destructive pump problems, but it’s also well understood and fixable once you find the cause. Here’s how.

What Cavitation Actually Is

Cavitation happens when the pressure inside the pump drops below the liquid’s vapor pressure, causing vapor bubbles to form in the liquid. When those bubbles travel to a higher-pressure region — typically as the impeller accelerates the fluid — they collapse violently. Each tiny implosion sends out a shock wave, and millions of them per minute pit and erode the impeller and pump housing like a microscopic jackhammer.

The classic symptom is the sound: a rattling, gravel-like, or crackling noise. But the damage is the real problem — eroded impellers, premature seal and bearing failure from the vibration, loss of flow and efficiency, and eventually pump failure.

The Common Causes

Insufficient NPSH (suction problems). By far the most common cause. If the available Net Positive Suction Head falls below what the pump requires (NPSHr), the liquid flashes to vapor at the suction. Culprits include a clogged suction strainer or filter, a partially closed or undersized suction valve, too long or too small a suction line, a suction lift that’s too high, or liquid that’s too hot (raising its vapor pressure).

Discharge / flow problems. Running a pump far from its best efficiency point — especially at very low flow against a throttled discharge, or far out on the curve — can induce cavitation and recirculation.

Air entrainment. Air leaking into the suction through bad gaskets or seals, or drawn in from a vortex in the supply tank, mimics and compounds cavitation.

How to Detect It

Listen — the gravel/rattling sound is the giveaway. Beyond that: visible vibration, fluctuating discharge pressure and flow, dropping efficiency, and on teardown, the tell-tale pitting and erosion on the impeller (usually on the leading edge or low-pressure side). Vibration analysis can confirm cavitation and distinguish it from imbalance, misalignment, or bearing problems by its characteristic broadband signature.

Solutions

Fixing cavitation means restoring adequate suction conditions or moving the pump back toward its design point. Clear or enlarge the suction strainer and piping, fully open suction valves, reduce suction lift, lower the fluid temperature if possible, and eliminate air leaks. On the system side, trim or replace the impeller to better match the duty, adjust the operating point, or in some cases select a pump with a lower NPSHr. Correcting the root cause is essential — simply replacing an eroded impeller without fixing the suction condition just buys a few months before the damage returns.

Stop the Damage at the Source

Cavitation is mechanical self-destruction in slow motion — but it’s preventable once the root cause is identified. The key is diagnosing why the pump is cavitating, not just replacing the parts it has eroded.

A&W Electric repairs and rebuilds pumps of nearly every type, diagnoses cavitation and related problems through vibration analysis, and helps you correct the underlying cause so the repair lasts.

Technical Article

“Predictive maintenance pays for itself” is easy to say and harder to prove to a CFO. The good news is that the returns are real and measurable — they come from specific, quantifiable places. This guide breaks down where the savings actually come from and how to build a simple ROI case for your facility.

The Three Maintenance Strategies

Reactive (run-to-failure): fix it when it breaks. Cheapest in the short term, most expensive over time — unplanned downtime, secondary damage, emergency labor and freight, and lost production.

Preventive (time-based): service equipment on a fixed schedule whether it needs it or not. Better than reactive, but you still replace healthy components too early and can still be surprised by failures between intervals.

Predictive (condition-based): monitor actual equipment condition — vibration, temperature, current, and more — and act only when the data shows a developing problem. You fix what needs fixing, when it needs fixing, on your schedule.

Where the ROI Actually Comes From

Avoided unplanned downtime. The biggest driver by far. Unplanned downtime in a manufacturing plant can cost thousands to tens of thousands of dollars per hour. Catching a failure weeks early and fixing it during planned downtime converts an emergency into a scheduled task.

Reduced secondary damage. A failing bearing caught early is a cheap repair; the same bearing run to destruction can take out the shaft, windings, and coupling — turning a minor fix into a full rebuild or replacement.

Lower emergency costs. Predictive maintenance replaces overtime labor, expedited freight, and premium emergency-service rates with planned, normal-rate work.

Extended equipment life. Correcting small problems — lubrication, alignment, balance — before they cause damage extends the life of expensive assets.

Optimized maintenance labor. Your team works on the equipment that actually needs attention instead of servicing healthy machines on a calendar or chasing fires.

A Simple ROI Calculation

You don’t need a complex model to make the case. Start with one number most plants can estimate: the cost of one hour of unplanned downtime on a critical line. Multiply by the hours of downtime you experienced last year from monitorable failures (motors, pumps, gearboxes, bearings). That’s your addressable cost.

Then estimate conservatively that condition monitoring could prevent even half of those events. Compare that avoided cost against the cost of sensors and monitoring — often on the order of $144 per sensor per year — plus installation. For most facilities with critical rotating equipment, a single prevented failure pays for the monitoring program many times over.

Start Where It Matters Most

You don’t have to monitor everything at once. The smart approach is to start with your most critical assets — the ones whose failure stops production or carries the highest repair cost — prove the return, and expand from there. A modular, scalable platform lets you do exactly that.

Make the Business Case

Predictive maintenance isn’t about technology for its own sake — it’s about converting unpredictable, expensive failures into planned, manageable maintenance, and proving the savings in dollars.

A&W Electric’s RAMS® platform makes this practical: sensor-agnostic, modular, and scalable, with a cost structure that lets you start on your most critical assets and grow. We help you identify where monitoring will pay off first and build the case.