Ran both types side by side for 6 years now (3x servo, 2x hydraulic) so I have some real numbers to share.
Maintenance cost per year, averaged over 6 years:
- 300T servo (Komatsu H1F): $8,200/yr — mostly belts, encoder batteries, and one drive fan replacement
- 300T hydraulic (Dake): $14,800/yr — seals, hoses, oil changes, proportional valve rebuilds, and one pump replacement at year 4 ($6,500)
The hydraulic oil alone is $1,800/yr between fluid cost and disposal. Servo press has gear oil that gets changed once every 3 years for about $200.
Energy was the other surprise. Hydraulic runs the pump continuously whether you're forming or not. Our 300T hydraulic pulls 18 kW idle. The servo pulls 3.2 kW with drives enabled, zero when idle-disabled. Over a 2-shift operation at 65% uptime, that's roughly $4,500/yr difference in electricity.
Where hydraulic still wins for us: we have one press doing rubber pad forming where we need 45 seconds of sustained force at BDC. Servo can't hold tonnage at zero speed without overheating the motor (torque = current = heat). The hydraulic just sits there at pressure all day. For anything with dwell over about 3-4 seconds under load, hydraulic is still the right answer.