# 11kw ABB DRIVE



## Safari (Jul 9, 2013)

we have this drive that is connected to 11kw motor.the. motor is connected to a big pulley via three v belts. 

2 belts got worn out and were removed. and not replaced(no spare) hence the production guys as always said it should run that way.now the drive gives a permanently short cct error. 

my boss wants an explanation. told him one belt cant run the motor so it was giving overcurrent error.which someone might have been reseting all the. time until the drive became faulty.he says thats not true am blaming production and mechanical guys. 

any explanation would be appreciated. thanks
Sent from my HUAWEI Y210-0100 using Tapatalk 2


----------



## HARRY304E (Sep 15, 2010)

nickson said:


> we have this drive that is connected to 11kw motor.the. motor is connected to a big pulley via three v belts.
> 
> 2 belts got worn out and were removed. and not replaced(no spare) hence the production guys as always said it should run that way.now the drive gives a permanently short cct error.
> 
> ...


I think you've got it right,Right there.


----------



## Southeast Power (Jan 18, 2009)

No parts?
Can't you guys bolt a couple of elephant trunks together or something like that to improvise until the belts arrive? :001_huh:


----------



## Safari (Jul 9, 2013)

jrannis said:


> No parts?
> Can't you guys bolt a couple of elephant trunks together or something like that to improvise until the belts arrive? :001_huh:


thank you 

Sent from my HUAWEI Y210-0100 using Tapatalk 2


----------



## Tsmil (Jul 17, 2011)

Check wiring to motor as manual states. Does fault happen if motor leads are disconnected from drive?


----------



## Safari (Jul 9, 2013)

Tsmil said:


> Check wiring to motor as manual states. Does fault happen if motor leads are disconnected from drive?


yes even with motor leads out.

Sent from my HUAWEI Y210-0100 using Tapatalk 2


----------



## JRaef (Mar 23, 2009)

The non-resettable fault indicates that you now have a blown output transistor (or more). I'm not sure how the removal of a belt or two belts would cause that though. Removing belts may make the one remaining belt slip more and cause it too to fail in short order, but it would not cause the drive to overload, and the drive should have tripped anyway. 

The more likely scenario is that there was some other mechanical problem that caused two of your belts to break, then ALSO caused incremental damage to your transistors that took a while to show up as a complete failure.


----------



## Safari (Jul 9, 2013)

JRaef said:


> The non-resettable fault indicates that you now have a blown output transistor (or more). I'm not sure how the removal of a belt or two belts would cause that though. Removing belts may make the one remaining belt slip more and cause it too to fail in short order, but it would not cause the drive to overload, and the drive should have tripped anyway.
> 
> The more likely scenario is that there was some other mechanical problem that caused two of your belts to break, then ALSO caused incremental damage to your transistors that took a while to show up as a complete failure.


thanks jraef two more questions.if you constantly have an overcurrent fault.then instead of finding the cause of the fault you reset it.can it cause that short cct error if you keep on reseting it for a long time. am thinking this is what happened 

2.the pulley is used to lift a die which is used for making circular plates from an alluminium sheet.now the die is heavy.this is possibly the overloading am talking about.

I have opened up.micromaster drives bt not ABB
is there a way that output transtor can be changed
Sent from my HUAWEI Y210-0100 using Tapatalk 2


----------



## JRaef (Mar 23, 2009)

nickson said:


> thanks jraef two more questions.if you constantly have an overcurrent fault.then instead of finding the cause of the fault you reset it.can it cause that short cct error if you keep on reseting it for a long time. am thinking this is what happened
> 
> 2.the pulley is used to lift a die which is used for making circular plates from an alluminium sheet.now the die is heavy.this is possibly the overloading am talking about.
> 
> ...


1. If there is a fault that the drive is protecting itself from, and someone keeps just resetting it without looking for the cause, absolutely it can lead to damage of the drive. The faults will be shown in the fault history by the way. 

2. The die weighs the same amount regardless of how many belts are lifting it. If however you had what are called compound pulleys, meaning pulleys in series with each other (not "belts" as in vee belts in parallel on one pulley) and you went from 3 pulleys in series to one pulley, then yes, the force now expressed on the remaining pulley will increase by the inverse of the ratio reduction that was removed and that may be seriously more than what the drive and motor is capable of. 

3. Most 11kW drives now use what are called an IPM, Intelligent Power Module, where the diodes, transistors and firing circuits are all in a single brick-like device about the size if a credit card. Nothing about this is repairable.


----------



## Safari (Jul 9, 2013)

JRaef said:


> 1. If there is a fault that the drive is protecting itself from, and someone keeps just resetting it without looking for the cause, absolutely it can lead to damage of the drive. The faults will be shown in the fault history by the way.



thanks jraef for that detailed explanation. now I did check the. fault history when I was troubleshooting.however only the last three recent faults are saved and that doesn't help much. 

mostly when a drive gets faulty I usually have this sad feeling that can actually last a week.inside me something tells me a drive has all the protection it needs so it should never fail that way.now seems it's a waste. this was one of the drives i nstalled two years ago and its sad she had to fail that way its so sad ..am so attached to drives.
Sent from my HUAWEI Y210-0100 using Tapatalk 2


----------



## JRaef (Mar 23, 2009)

nickson said:


> thanks jraef for that detailed explanation. now I did check the. fault history when I was troubleshooting.however only the last three recent faults are saved and that doesn't help much.
> 
> mostly when a drive gets faulty I usually have this sad feeling that can actually last a week.inside me something tells me a drive has all the protection it needs so it should never fail that way.now seems it's a waste. this was one of the drives i nstalled two years ago and its sad she had to fail that way its so sad ..am so attached to drives.
> Sent from my HUAWEI Y210-0100 using Tapatalk 2


I'm not sure which level of ABB drives you are using, but the higher performance versions, such as the ACS550 or 800, I believe have a way to set the minimum time between restart attempts, and maybe even set a maximum number of restart attempts before shutting down and requiring a manual reset by someone (like yourself) who has an access code to the higher levels of programming. Don't ever ever ever let the operators see you enter that code however, disaster always follows that in short order. 

If your drive doesn't have it but you have a PLC somewhere, you can implement something like it in the PLC program by monitoring the Fault contact and using timers and counters. Here in the US many of us call it the "Bubbah lockout" because a lot of ignorant operators seem to have nicknames similar to "Bubbah" (no offense to any members actually named Bubbah, it's just a tease).


----------



## Safari (Jul 9, 2013)

JRaef said:


> I'm not sure which level of ABB drives you are using, but the higher performance versions, such as the ACS550 or 800, I believe have a way to set the minimum time between restart attempts, and maybe even set a maximum number of restart attempts before shutting down and requiring a manual reset by someone (like yourself) who has an access code to the higher levels of programming. Don't ever ever ever let the operators see you enter that code however, disaster always follows that in short o).


we are using the ACS 550 series am yet to see the. 800 series. kind of they havent arrived in this part of the world.if you have pictures of it please post.

and indeed the operations do reset the drives.I had put a password once bt I remember it really caused problems even after giving the technician in shift the password he couldnt figure out how to enter and it did affect the down time.

this is one company where production counts.sometimes I wish all production managers were electrical engineers.only then they could understand the value of a machine.

btwn
we have a new boss and the drives we are getting now are yaskawa types. I found them not to be friendly in terms of programming. I havent mastered any yaskawa tricks like.ABB


Sent from my HUAWEI Y210-0100 using Tapatalk 2


----------



## oliquir (Jan 13, 2011)

not the first time i see that with abb drive (have changed 3 abb acs550 3hp vfd into a machine in 3 years the first one under warranty) . it may just have overheated then blow transistor after repeated overcurrent. im not using them anymore, way too much failures!


----------



## Safari (Jul 9, 2013)

oliquir said:


> not the first time i see that with abb drive (have changed 3 abb acs550 3hp vfd into a machine in 3 years the first one under warranty) . it may just have overheated then blow transistor after repeated overcurrent. im not using them anymore, way too much failures!


am curious to know which brand of drives you are using and how they are responding. 
micromaster are the worst we upgraded from them to ABB

Sent from my HUAWEI Y210-0100 using Tapatalk 2


----------



## oliquir (Jan 13, 2011)

i am using cheap eaton and durapulse (delta) vfd and had less trouble with them, they are not high end like the abb but they do good job for my needs.


----------



## Safari (Jul 9, 2013)

ok, unfortunately.we.don't have Eton 

Sent from my HUAWEI Y210-0100 using Tapatalk 2


----------



## JRaef (Mar 23, 2009)

I am at an international meeting for Rockwell, our Africa representative will give me the contact info for two distributors we have in Nigeria.


----------



## Safari (Jul 9, 2013)

that will be awesome jraef

I know for a fact Rockwell brands are largely used in south Africa 

Sent from my HUAWEI Y210-0100 using Tapatalk 2


----------



## JRaef (Mar 23, 2009)

nickson said:


> that will be awesome jraef
> 
> I know for a fact Rockwell brands are largely used in south Africa
> 
> Sent from my HUAWEI Y210-0100 using Tapatalk 2


Apparently there is only one actually IN Nigeria, it is a contract arrangement with this firm:

*Dorman Long Engineering Limited
*12/14 Agege Motor Road Idi-Oro 
P.O. Box 256, Lagos. 
*Tel:* +234 1 7919878, 7748357 
*Email:* [email protected]

The other one that is officially assigned to Nigeria is in Angola, 
Wesco Distributing (yes, for the US members, same Wesco we have here)

WDI Angola
Municã*pio De Belas
Urbanizaã§ã£o Nova Vida, Rua 36 Casa 326

The Rockwell office is there too:
*Rockwell Automation
Local Sales Offices*

Riverview Park
Janadel Avenue 
Midrand South Africa, Angola
Middle East and Africa
Tel:+27 11 654 9700
Fax:+27 11 654 9701
*Service Dispatch*

+27 11 654 9700
*Parts Repair/Exchange*

+27 (0)860104373
*Local Tech Support*

+27 (0)860104373


----------



## Safari (Jul 9, 2013)

thanks jraef, apparently getting them from Nigeria or Angola is much way easier for us
am forwarding this information

btwn
there are times that rockwell do.trainings (of course for a fee).they rarely come to east Africa,mainly south and west Africa.is there a way as a company we can request for that 



Sent from my HUAWEI Y210-0100 using Tapatalk 2


----------

