My Three Months with Delta’s ASDA-E3 Servo System

Man, I never thought I’d get excited about servo motors, but here I am. After fighting with our old motion control systems for years, my maintenance team convinced management to spring for Delta’s ASDA-E3 Servo Drives last quarter.

Best decision we’ve made since switching to third-shift coffee that doesn’t taste like motor oil.

The Good Stuff They Don’t Put in the Brochure

Look, Delta’s marketing team talks about “5x greater bandwidth” and “40dB attenuation rates,” which honestly meant nothing to me initially. What matters? Our die-cutting machine used to shake so badly at certain speeds that we had a yellow “danger zone” marked on the floor around it. Now my operators fight over who gets to run it.

We installed our first ASDA-E3 on a Friday (against my better judgment—never start projects on Fridays). By Monday morning, production was up 8.3%. By the end of the month, we’d cut defect rates by almost 14%. My boss thinks I’m some kind of miracle worker now.

The real magic? The vibration issues disappeared immediately. Jim from second shift—you know the type, been here 30 years, trusts new technology about as far as he can throw it—even admitted, “Whatever you did to this machine, keep doing it to the others.”

Even I Could Set This Thing Up

Here’s where I’ll sound like a Delta fanboy. Their auto-tuning works. Like, works.

Most servo “auto-tuning” makes you jump through so many hoops that you might as well do it manually. The ASDA-E3? I connected it, followed some surprisingly clear instructions, pressed a few buttons, and… that was it. Done. Tuned. Running perfectly.

We even tested this by having Mike (our newest guy who barely knows which end of a screwdriver to hold) set up the second unit without help. Took him longer, sure, but it worked perfectly on the first try. Never seen anything like it in 22 years of maintenance work.

Flexibility That Makes Life Easier

We’ve got a real mixed bag of equipment in our shop, which usually means headaches when installing new control systems. The ASDA-E3 gives us three control modes that handle all our weird applications:

Position Control: We retrofitted our old XYZ pick-and-place with this. The positioning is so precise now that we’ve totally eliminated the “nudge” cycles we used to need.

And with 24-bit resolution (that’s 16,777,216 pulses every single revolution, for you non-tech folks), it’s like going from VHS to 4K overnight.

Speed Control: Our variable-speed conveyor used to hate running slow—it would stutter and jerk parts right off the belt. With the ASDA-E3’s 1:6000 speed range, it now runs as smoothly at 1% speed as it does at 100%. The bottle inspection cameras finally get clear images every time.

Torque Control: This mode saved our material winding station. Used to need an operator babysitting it constantly to adjust the tension. Now it maintains perfect tension automatically from empty spool to full. We reassigned that operator to more valuable work.

And for our newest machines, we got the EtherCAT-capable E3-E models. Plugged right into our network, and now I can monitor performance from my phone while eating lunch in my car (the true maintenance supervisor dream).

Motors That Fit Where They Shouldn’t

The ECM-E3 motors that pair with these drives come in sizes from tiny 40mm frames all the way up to hefty 180mm units with power options from 100W to 3kW. This might sound boring, but it’s been a game-changer.

Remember that ancient French-made cartoner that nobody makes parts for anymore? The one with the weird mounting dimensions? We found a 60mm ECM-E3 that fit with just minor bracket fabrication. Saved us from a $200K replacement project.

For our heavy-duty mixer, we installed the 180mm/3kW model. It handles the sudden load changes when mixing starts without tripping, unlike the previous motor that would fault out at least twice a week.

Built for Real-World Abuse

Our shop isn’t exactly a clean room. We’ve got dust, occasional liquid spills, power quality issues from the ancient electrical system, and operators who sometimes treat equipment… creatively.

The ASDA-E3 takes it all in stride. The overcurrent, overvoltage, and thermal protection systems have already saved us multiple times without false alarms. Even when Dave from shipping backed a forklift into a control panel (don’t ask), the drive recovered after a power cycle.

For our critical lines, we added the absolute encoder option with battery backup. No more re-homing after power outages—which, given our location’s weather patterns, saves us about 2-3 hours of lost production every month.

Upgrading Without the Usual Chaos

Delta provides conversion cables that let you connect these new drives to older motors. This was huge for us—we upgraded our drives all at once but are spreading the motor replacements across six months of scheduled maintenance windows. No massive downtime hit, just incremental improvements.

Get Your Hands on This Game-Changer with Ausweg Info Control

If you’re still running ancient servo systems and fighting the same battles we were, do yourself a favor and call Ausweg Info Control. They’re the folks who helped us through our installation when we got stuck trying to interface with some truly ancient equipment.

Their team doesn’t just sell you boxes—they actually showed up with tools, helped us modify mounting brackets for the odd-sized machines, and even trained my entire crew (including third shift, which nobody ever wants to come in for).

Reach Ausweg Info Control at 1-800-AUTOMATION or visit their website at www.auswegcontrol.com. Ask for Tony or Maria and tell them Rick from Midwest Manufacturing sent you—they promised me they’d offer a free system assessment to anyone I refer.

They’ll map out exactly how to implement Delta ASDA-E3 solutions in your specific environment, probably finding efficiency improvements you never even considered.

Stop wasting time and money on maintenance calls and production delays. These Delta servo systems through Ausweg Info Control will change how you think about your equipment capabilities. I never thought I’d look forward to Monday mornings, but seeing those performance reports has changed that completely.

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