Inverter failure guidance

The enforced time off has lead to much garage tidying and there were a couple of jobs for the lathe to do. It is a Warco 220 that had a ABB ACS200 fitted before my ownership. It was working perfectly. Today, no motor running. I have flicked through the menu on the inverter and looked at the manual, all as clear as mud!

Is there a set of standard settings that should be set to get started? Output frequency say 0.0 Hz and output voltage is saying 0v . My working theory is that there is a ‘memory battery’ that has failed and it has forgotten it’s settings.

All help / hints appreciated!

Regards

Jim

I’ve never seen a memory backup battery in any VFD

you can generally set default settings by a parameter

but i would look at your pot wiring first

Thanks. Tomorrows job !

All I can suggest is checking all the wiring connections. If you have any remote switchgear or pot, they could be checked. I bought remote switches when I wired mine and had faults in the contacts. The cure, so far was to spray AC90 (similar to Plus Gas or WD40) into the switches. Although only one had poor connections, I sprayed them all.

Better than the oily products mentioned above for switches and pots is a designer switch cleaner like Servisol. It's solvent shouldn't damage nearby electronics and it contains a suitable lubricant.

Dave

Spraying WD40 in any electrical device will ruin it sooner or later, in my experience.

Electrical contact cleaner spray will not damage anything and will remove dirt and oily muck as well as remove some light oxidation. It will not remove heavy caked on white / blue / green oxidation muck.

Just trying to save someone an expensive lesson.

I agree, Servisol switch cleaning lubricant is by far the best, but it is not that common, so far the AC90 that I used has not been any trouble. They do a product called EC90 which is specifically for electrical contacts.

Edited By old mart on 28/03/2020 17:34:12

To alleviate the possibility of any remote controls being faulty. Revert the inverter back to panel control. On one of mine it is the 1st setting which can be set 1 or 2. 1 being the panel front, 2 being remotely connected switchgear & pot. At least that will rule out or in the possibility of a faulty sw or pot. Also do not go near the inverter with any kind of spray. Or you may end up with a small mushroom cloud above your shed. 

Steve.

Edited By Steviegtr on 28/03/2020 19:01:31

A few years back, we had a repair workshop at a firm I worked for. One the team was repairing a CRT monitor, which had a noisy pot that adjusted screen hold. You could get a bit of extra life with a squirt of contact cleaner, not applied when the monitor was powered up. When he rotated the pot to work the cleaner in, it arced and burst into flames. Nothing too dramatic, but he never did it again.

Before you go too far, check any interlock switches. Foot bar, end door, chuck guard etc.

Back to the original question, I would agree that it appears that the VFD is not getting a control signal to ramp up the speed. There are no errors reported, so reverting to front panel operation is a good move.

I also concur with not getting any contact cleaner anywhere near the unit. A complete lack of function is not going to fixed by a squirt.

Edited By Stuart Bridger on 28/03/2020 20:50:43

Also worth checking the manual for how any interlocking is messaged on the display. My unit which is not the same make, will display INH or RDY. (Inhibited or Ready) based on the interlock inputs. Then when the run signal is applied, it displays the frequency.

Hi Jim,

Not sure about your drive but I've got an ABB ACH-550 (15kw) which has a backup battery in the display . Dont know where the start parameters are stored but its an easy job to replace the battery and it may just be the answer.

Peter

It is probably advisable to wait for any propellant flash off before reapplying power to any device that has switch cleaner/lube applied to it. If you have a circuit diagram or the inverter manual you should be able to test or bypass any interlocks, check the stop button is not latched in or jammed in, I wouldn’t mind a pound for every stop button that has caused a breakdown. Some smart alecs found the buttons on a production line had break before make buttons to they could stop the line before the indication flagged up the button station, a production line has a lot buttons to check.

Mike

Well an interesting day if not a successful day !

I decided to trace everything, first discovery was that almost every wire had been heavily scored when stripping, such that every conductor was showing when the cable was flexed, unlikely to be the fault but not good!

On open the ACS200 I discovered that a previous owner had stripped the threads on the low voltage terminal block, instead of sorting this they had inserted ‘matchsticks’ to hold the wires in place. As none of the cable exits had compression glands, at least one wire had come adrift. So starting from scratch, everything rewired and the terminal blocks replaced. Cable glands fitted.

Powered up and still no joy. Checked low voltage figures at the pcb , the pot gives 1v to 9.8 v (10 v supply specified ) so assume that is ok. The motor switch, moves the 24 v between the terminal for forward and reverse, so this seems ok.

All settings returned to factory default. Previous owner had taken emergency stop, gear cover microswitch, and chuck guard out of circuit!

No voltage at all between the 3 phases of the output.

I am beginning to think the unit is dead, interestingly the ‘warning high voltage’ led lights and stays on for quite a while after complete power down, suggesting that the high voltage side is charging up.

I assume the output should be set to 220v and not 440v as the instructions say the unit is unable to supply a higher voltage than the ‘supply voltage’.

Motor plate says Y/D 415/240

I will try to post some pictures.

Anyone any ideas ?

Just looked at replacements......ouch !

Jim

Photo’s uploaded but not sure where!

.....ah they appear linked on the left of the posting!

Edited By Jim Young 2 on 29/03/2020 17:34:38

How long since last used? Electrolytics are supposedly prone to failure in stored units. There are methods on the ‘net for ‘conditioning’ these items before being put back in service. I have never positively suffered from such failure but I do wonder if things like plasma cutters, etc fail in this way (usually cheaper chinese items).

Thanks, yes I did glance at the two huge electrolytics, they are nice and ‘shapely’ with no bulging , obviously tricky (and most likely inaccurate) to measure on the board, but working on the board is tricky (but not impossible) as it is double sided. Last powered up and working about 3 months ago.

I take it the "FAULT" LED is off?

Are you sure you are in local mode and have commande the motor on?

Is the "REMOTE LED on or OFF?

What is the "DIRECTION" LED showing?

One thing to try is to reset it to factory defaults (see page 34 of the manual https://www.sentridge.com/wp-content/uploads/ACS200USERMANUAL.pdf ) then set the drive up "from new" following the manual.

Robert G8RPI.

This is the VFD I bought which powers up to 1hp motors. The sellers quick start guide which can be downloaded and printed made the installation and programming very easy. Many of the products they sell have these guides, and you could look at a smaller unit if your motor is less than 1hp, which would be cheaper.

**LINK**