Hey out there, thanks in advance for your help

Having an intermittent problem with our '98 brushless VF3. We've been getting an x cable fault error, but we replaced that cable last year and on inspection it looks pretty much brand new. Sunday was rough, it was erroring out every few minutes until I unplugged the two connectors to the motor to inspect them. I plugged them back in and we ran for about another 24 hours without any errors. I used some electrical cleaning spray and dialectric goop and we ran for another 8 hours and then we errored out again. Just undid the connector with more pins on it (one has 15 - 20, the other only has 4) and plugged it back in and we're back in business making parts. We're in the snowboard binding business so it's go time, we've been running the mill from 5 am until after midnight, so I'm not surprised that we're having some issues.

I talked to our repair guys today and they're thinking its either the motor or the encoder. Unfortunately they only come as a unit that costs $2000 + shipping. Ouch. He suggested swapping the X and Y motors to see if the problem changes axes, if it doesn't then it's the cable. I'll be doing the plug and unplug dance this week until we get our first round of orders out, after that I'll get in deep and switch the x and y motors and see what happens.

I was wondering if anybody out there had a similar issue and was able to solve it in an easier fashion.

Thanks!