Armed with a hypothesis — intermittent EMI from the VFD was corrupting MODBUS frames — Mara set out corrective measures. She ferried ferrite beads and shielded cable from her toolbox, installed a common-mode choke between the VFD and the motor, and re-routed the RS-485 bus away from the VFD’s power cables where possible. She also tightened grounding at the bus endpoints and added 120-ohm termination where missing.