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Hi,
I'm Jeff Rogers with Innovative IDM. Variable frequency drives are probably one of the
greatest inventions in modern automation.
If you aren’t using one of these things yet trust me you will be soon.
They’re always getting less expensive, easier to use
and the applications are virtually endless. Now you can control the speed and the
direction of a motor
and save money at the same time.
So, these things are very instrumental in a lot of different applications
and therefore there uptime is critical.
As you may know if you've ever had to replace one before
it could be a little bit cumbersome to replace and it's always really race against
the clock; because it almost certainly means that a motor somewhere is not
running which is probably need some down time for you.
So, the first thing that you always want to remember
about the VFD uptime is
that feat is the number one VFD killer.
You know heat is the number one killer for any piece of electronic for that
matter especially VFD’s.
These components you have to remember
they have high voltage running through them.
So, they could be 480 to
600 volts if you’re in the Canada market, running through them.
They produce a lot of heat, there are fans inside these things that are
designed to cool they also have massive heat sinks on the back
that are used for heat transfer
to the cabinet or surrounding pieces to keep them cool.
So, the one thing you always must remember is you need to let your
VFD’s breathe.
They must stay cool.
Keep the fans running, always keep the fans running.
The first thing that you're probably going to see that's going fail in a VFD
is the fan, because its always running. Anytime the VFD is on
the fans are going constantly. So, you need to make sure that you have
spare fans on the shelf you know how to replace them and you maintain them.
Make them part of your preventive maintenance program check to make sure
that they're running.
Also, the heatsinks themselves can get very dusty
and that dust can build-up a lot of that heat so that it can’t
transfer heat properly and they’ll get too hot, always clean your heatsinks.
Number 3 the internals of the drive because there's fans
forcing air through the internals here dust can build up inside just
like a PC at home.
what do you do to mitigate that? Get a can compressed air below that stuff out
there very now and then.
Make sure that you keep a VFD cool
and it'll always be happy. The number two thing
is you want to protect your drives from exposure to
heat and contaminants such as dust
or particulate that may be in your air because of whatever process
is going on in the nearby environment.
So, you know you want to make sure that the cabinet that these are installed in or
at least the environment, the room that they're in
is a controlled environment, make sure it's not going to get too hot
if you’re going to put it in a cabinet make sure that nema or the IP rating on the
cabinet is suitable for that environment to keep contaminants away from getting
to this piece of equipment.
The third thing that you always remember
is that you want to always try to use proper electrical filters whenever
possible, so there are filters
that are designed for use both line side which is between the power company
and the drive
as well as load side which is between the drive
and the motor or the load, typically its going to be a motor.
So, there are inductive and capacitive
type filters as well RFI/EMI type filters
that are designed to help these things,
help protect them against power spikes, electromagnetic noise
that may
damage the input or the output side
of the drive electronics. So, always always try to use
proper electrical filters, it may cost you a little bit more in the beginning
but you'll be you be a lot better off in the long run because it'll
prolong the life of the VFD itself.
The fourth thing is that you’re going to always want to properly maintain
the load that this motor is connected to. For instance, if you're not properly
maintaining a motor and a motor burns up and you know the insulation
melts inside the motor because it gets too hot, maybe you didn't
grease a bearing or something like that and it creates a short
that short is going to damage the output this drive and could cause the drive
itself to fail.
So, always make sure that you're properly maintaining downstream equipment, the load
that this thing is hooked up to.
If you have any more questions about this always feel free to contact us
We have application specialists that can help answer questions as far as how
to properly size them, how to properly size the cabinets that
they're installed in,
the environments that they go in, as well as the electrical filters I mentioned;
Best practices to use when installing those.
Also, you can find a lot of information on our website
InnovativeIDM.com is where you can find our knowledge centre
there's going to be white papers on best practices listed there
that you would want to use when selecting drives and components both upstream and
downstream
from the drive to help increase
uptime. After all, Innovative IDM is the home of
the legendary customer experience.