# Powerflex 700s



## Mountain Electrician (Jan 22, 2007)

Caught a good one the other day. A customer has about 15 or so AB Powerflex 700 VFDs installed different places in their facility. I get a 5:45AM emergency call telling me there has been an electrical fire and can I come in and check it out.

When I get there they have a 10HP drive completely melted down. Its mounted in a control cabinet and it seems to be the source of the fire and the only thing affected. Voltage is good, no obvious wiring issues. I go to get a spare drive out of a "temporary" service, to find it's shot too. I then find out they lost a motor in the middle of the previous night, and yet another drive gone as well. After the dust settled, the count was 4 drives, (all Allen Bradley Power Flex 700s) and 1 motor. The 10 Yasgawa drives they have were all fine. Hmmmm?? I call my local AB drive guru and he suggests I check the MOV and common capacitor jumpers. These jumpers need to be removed on an ungrounded system. The customers transformer is an ungrounded Y secondary, and sure enough the jumpers are in installed in all of the failed drives. Today I installed the new drives with removed jumpers. 

A couple of lessons learned:


2 of the drives I had installed, but set them up just like some others already in service. Don't assume its right just because it's working. I should have double checked all of the jumper settings
The other drives were on OEM equipment. Out of 10 drives 6 had the jumpers removed. The drives were installed and wired at the factory, and then started up by their techs. Always double check the equipment wiring. The drawings showed the jumpers removed, but they all weren't.
Also, I beat my head against the wall for a few hours this morning trying to get an ethernet connection to a drive. Turns out the new drives firmware was a later revision, and didn't match the PLC I/O configuration. I won't forget that anytime soon!


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## Nodoggie (Oct 17, 2008)

THAT was informative...and interesting. thanx. good stuff to know and remember. :thumbsup:


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## brian john (Mar 11, 2007)

Bad luck on their part but a good catch on you part.


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## heel600 (Oct 31, 2007)

Mountain Electrician said:


> Caught a good one the other day. A customer has about 15 or so AB Powerflex 700 VFDs installed different places in their facility. I get a 5:45AM emergency call telling me there has been an electrical fire and can I come in and check it out.
> 
> When I get there they have a 10HP drive completely melted down. Its mounted in a control cabinet and it seems to be the source of the fire and the only thing affected. Voltage is good, no obvious wiring issues. I go to get a spare drive out of a "temporary" service, to find it's shot too. I then find out they lost a motor in the middle of the previous night, and yet another drive gone as well. After the dust settled, the count was 4 drives, (all Allen Bradley Power Flex 700s) and 1 motor. The 10 Yasgawa drives they have were all fine. Hmmmm?? I call my local AB drive guru and he suggests I check the MOV and common capacitor jumpers. These jumpers need to be removed on an ungrounded system. The customers transformer is an ungrounded Y secondary, and sure enough the jumpers are in installed in all of the failed drives. Today I installed the new drives with removed jumpers.
> 
> ...


So the new drives and motor came out of your pocket?


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## Mountain Electrician (Jan 22, 2007)

heel600 said:


> So the new drives and motor came out of your pocket?


Nope. 2 of the 4 were OEM supplied and wired, we just hooked power and control to the VFD cabinets. The OEM supplied their own techs for startup. They are going good for those. Several years ago when I installed the other 2, I worked for my customer as an employee. If I supplied and wired the drives now as a contractor, I would be liable for the replacement costs of 2 of the drives. About 3 grand plus @ 650.00 labor.


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## John Valdes (May 17, 2007)

Another thing to remember. 10 Yasgawa's no issue, 4 AB drives shot. Every drive manufacturer strongly suggests the wye secondary. How many techs in the plant knew if it was grounded or not? How many would know how to find out. Since these jumpers were so important, why would you have to talk to the guru to find out about them? No red warning pull off tape over the jumpers.
Sometimes I think AB outsmarts themselves and their customers.


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## Mountain Electrician (Jan 22, 2007)

John Valdes said:


> Another thing to remember. 10 Yasgawa's no issue, 4 AB drives shot. Every drive manufacturer strongly suggests the wye secondary. How many techs in the plant knew if it was grounded or not? How many would know how to find out. Since these jumpers were so important, why would you have to talk to the guru to find out about them? No red warning pull off tape over the jumpers.
> Sometimes I think AB outsmarts themselves and their customers.


I agree 100%. My AB guy said they realize this as an issue, and said on the next series of drives the jumpers will come removed and will have to be field installed. This was not the first time he had seen this happen. Lots of industrial facilities have ungrounded systems. I much prefer Yasgawa. They are easy to program, and certainly take a ground fault better.


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## nick (Feb 14, 2008)

*vfd*

GOOD! post !makes one think about reading them manuals every time but theres always something we miss good info they say we learn by our mistakes , but its nice to know ahead thanks mountain .:thumbsup:


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## John Valdes (May 17, 2007)

Mountain Electrician said:


> I agree 100%. My AB guy said they realize this as an issue, and said on the next series of drives the jumpers will come removed and will have to be field installed. This was not the first time he had seen this happen. Lots of industrial facilities have ungrounded systems. I much prefer Yasgawa. They are easy to program, and certainly take a ground fault better.


I prefer Yasgawa also. I remember when I worked in a motor and drive shop the techs could not stand to see an AB drive come in for repair. So complicated and parts are astronomical. The programming manual is close to an inch thick. I am very happy to see Yasgawa take their brand name back. They built Magnetec and TECO and some others. Now if you want a Yasgawa you go to a Yasgawa distributor. Another great drive is ABB. Best torque control on the market. Baldor builds the easiest to program and is quite functional as well.

I will give it to AB for PLC's. The best next to Siemens. IMHO.


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## Mountain Electrician (Jan 22, 2007)

John Valdes said:


> I prefer Yasgawa also. I remember when I worked in a motor and drive shop the techs could not stand to see an AB drive come in for repair. So complicated and parts are astronomical. The programming manual is close to an inch thick. I am very happy to see Yasgawa take their brand name back. They built Magnetec and TECO and some others. Now if you want a Yasgawa you go to a Yasgawa distributor. Another great drive is ABB. Best torque control on the market. Baldor builds the easiest to program and is quite functional as well.
> 
> I will give it to AB for PLC's. The best next to Siemens. IMHO.


I knew Magnatec was Yaskawa, but I've never used TECO. I've used Toshiba and SEW Eurodrive (not a bad little drive for the money) as well as some of brand Chineese drives too.

AB is the industry standard for PLCs, and their Contrologix is a great product, but pricey. Most of my indistrial customers OEM plcs are AB.
I've used Toshiba, Modicon, AB, Westinghouse PC-100 numa-logic(w/ cassette to store program), Square D Symax, Idec, Omoron, Telemacanique (Idec) and GE Fanuc as well. I'm no PLC expert or programmer, but I can find my way around most PLCs for maintenance purposes. One I've never worked with is Siemens, though I've heard good things about it. Weren't they doing function block programming a way long time ago?

Anyway, mostly I wire houses.


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## 5volts (Jan 11, 2008)

> Also, I beat my head against the wall for a few hours this morning trying to get an ethernet connection to a drive. Turns out the new drives firmware was a later revision, and didn't match the PLC I/O configuration. I won't forget that anytime soon!quote]
> 
> At least with the latest versions of control logix you can flash the drives from the RS 5000 software, I believe the latest Version is 17. In our plant, We are running version 15, and 12. So we have to use control flash to update the firmware on some 1756 ethernet IP modules, what a pain in the @$$.
> 
> Good Find!


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## Mountain Electrician (Jan 22, 2007)

p_logix said:


> > Also, I beat my head against the wall for a few hours this morning trying to get an ethernet connection to a drive. Turns out the new drives firmware was a later revision, and didn't match the PLC I/O configuration. I won't forget that anytime soon!quote]
> >
> > At least with the latest versions of control logix you can flash the drives from the RS 5000 software, I believe the latest Version is 17. In our plant, We are running version 15, and 12. So we have to use control flash to update the firmware on some 1756 ethernet IP modules, what a pain in the @$$.
> >
> ...


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## John Valdes (May 17, 2007)

Mountain Electrician said:


> I knew Magnatec was Yaskawa, but I've never used TECO. I've used Toshiba and SEW Eurodrive (not a bad little drive for the money) as well as some of brand Chineese drives too.
> 
> AB is the industry standard for PLCs, and their Contrologix is a great product, but pricey. Most of my indistrial customers OEM plcs are AB.
> I've used Toshiba, Modicon, AB, Westinghouse PC-100 numa-logic(w/ cassette to store program), Square D Symax, Idec, Omoron, Telemacanique (Idec) and GE Fanuc as well. I'm no PLC expert or programmer, but I can find my way around most PLCs for maintenance purposes. One I've never worked with is Siemens, though I've heard good things about it. Weren't they doing function block programming a way long time ago?
> ...


House's are sure alot less pressure for sure. The Siemens PLC's I have recently worked with are the small 12 in 12 out type. Use them for small stand alone control panels to keep the enclosure size down. Many of the techies I know have much experience with Siemens. They like them because they are very inexpensive, stout and easy to program. They are good judges of equipment.
TECO is Taiwanese Electric Company. TECO bought Westinghouse. Thus TECO Westinghouse. 

You sure have been exposed to many brands. Sounds like you worked in industrial maint for a good while. Same here. I haven't done any construction in years. I am now out on WC. I hurt my back lifting a motor the first time, then a couple months later took a slip on some oil on the floor at a stamping facility.


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## Mountain Electrician (Jan 22, 2007)

John Valdes said:


> You sure have been exposed to many brands. Sounds like you worked in industrial maint for a good while. Same here. I haven't done any construction in years. I am now out on WC. I hurt my back lifting a motor the first time, then a couple months later took a slip on some oil on the floor at a stamping facility.


Industrial maint and construction for about 15 years. Exposed enough to familiar with PLCs, but not enough to be even close to expert. I worked construction and contract maintenance in oil refineries and gas plants for years before finally going to work for a refinery. They sent me for DCS and PLC training. Not too much PLC control in refineries then, 13 years ago, almost all DCS. Don't know if PLCs play a larger role now that they used to. 

I enjoyed the DCS stuff a lot, always a challange. I did maintenance and configuration on Honeywell TDS 3000 and Baily Net 90. That was years ago, and I've forgotten tons of it. Circumstances have led me back to resi and light commercial, and while I make more money now, I sure miss the challange of industrial work! Nothing quite like the high you get starting a new refinery unit up. A couple of weeks of non-stop troubleshooting. :thumbsup:

I have one strong industrial customer, a saw mill. Not too many advanced control algorithms there, but at least it beats roping houses. When it comes to controls, I sure have lost my edge.

Mostly I wire houses.


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## AEISA76 (Jun 17, 2013)

I read your post, I have a problem with a Power Flex 700,100 HP ,The equipment works but sometimes faults, the fault displayed is: Ground fault 13, we check all the equipment and all its parts are OK, also we change the IGBT´s, control board, power supply, SCR´s board(pre-charge board), Power Board,practically all new!, We tested the current sensors, and change them by another ones(not new but are working in another equipment ) and the problem still continue, some times the equipment works two months but sometimes only works two or three days and sometimes fails when only is ON, but is not running.
We read about some jumpers, What are that jumpers?
Were are they located ?
What do you think about the problem?


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## Susanta shaha (Jan 30, 2015)

I have one allen bradely VFD 270KW. Some days ago suddenly power was gone & again power come, from that time it is showing alarm: Connecting port error 5 & Connecting port error 6. Where is the problem, can you help me?


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## varmit (Apr 19, 2009)

Yep, I have seen this problem ( the jumpers left in) several times. Sometimes it is an instant VFD killer. I have replaced a few VFDs that have ran for years with the jumpers still in with an ungrounded system.

AB, some ABB and Baldor (now ABB) have these jumpers that need to be removed for non wye power systems.

Always: Check the facility power characteristics and the drive manual before powering up any VFD. 

I have yet to see a manual with flashing lights and bells and whistles to note the need to remove these jumpers. It is usually some small unnoticeable note somewhere.


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## Susanta shaha (Jan 30, 2015)

varmit said:


> Yep, I have seen this problem ( the jumpers left in) several times. Sometimes it is an instant VFD killer. I have replaced a few VFDs that have ran for years with the jumpers still in with an ungrounded system.
> 
> AB, some ABB and Baldor (now ABB) have these jumpers that need to be removed for non wye power systems.
> 
> ...


What can I do now, Remove the jumper by new one or others, What is your solution, Please clear me. your early response is very helpful for me


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## Dock (Sep 24, 2014)

Get the manual. There is a specific section on the grounding jumper but I'm not exactly familiar with it.


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## Susanta shaha (Jan 30, 2015)

Dock said:


> Get the manual. There is a specific section on the grounding jumper but I'm not exactly familiar with it.


That means you think the grounding problem of this drive?


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