Tips/Techniques New VFD questions

[Ironman]

I just ordered a VFD from Vevor, and as it puts out max 36 amp, I am going to feed it and it's output with #10. Yes, I know. But I am powering a 5hp 3ph motor from it so it would only see those amps in a locked rotor situation.
My lathe motor is intermittently telling the breaker panel that it's getting sick so it's time to replace it

 

[Ironman]

Thanks to everyone for the input. I really appreciate it.

I should point out my wire selection was governed by three things: 1) I am half farmer, so bigger is always better. 2) my mill came with 8 gauge wire and 3) I had a chunk of 8 gauge the right length to wire my lathe.

The VFD I bought is this one:

I do like the Half Farmer bit
Unless you have some setup experience with the VEVOR units, (I do) they are slightly off standard in the software. They default to 400 cycles and there are 3 parameters to change, or the bastards will revert to 400 cps the next time you fire it up. If you read the manual carefully it is all there.

 

[Dan Dubeau]

My 2.2kw Vevor VFD is heading back. After scouring the internet for setup help, I went through and set all the parameters that needed setting this morning, and was able to get the motor spinning, but it never got up to full rpm without tripping an alarm. After the 3rd try the smoke came out of it.

I can't even get the Vevor website to take the claim. Keeps timing out trying to upload the video, and won't let me submit my claim without it....It's been a frustrating day.

We'll see how good their return policy is.

Any tips Ironman?

Edit: I was able to edit the videos down in Davinci resolve and get them to load.

 

[Ironman]

I would have to know all the parameters you set, but it sounds like you are way below 60 cycles. Setup foul ups are the problem for many people who then resort to a RPC
I set up a Vevor 10 hp VFD on a large horizontal and vertical spindle mill and it is defaulted to 400cycles, the motor will twitch and then the thing shuts down. I was called in after he had tried everything. Then when I got it running, it ran for 5 seconds ant the main breaker tripped, because it was a ground fault breaker, and the noise on the line from a VFD will trip the GFI. So I waited til he got a new breaker installed and then I could put it through its paces. Then, as I have mentioned elsewhere on this forum, it would shut down if I messed with the cycles to change the spindle rpm. Because a transformer was strapped to two of the legs to provide 110v single phase for the 3 feed motors. When you lower the cycles per second the motor slows down. When you lower the cycles per second on a transformer the current goes up, and gets worse as you approach DC or zero cycles.

All of the above problems have nothing to do with it being a "bad" vfd. It was not bad. People who settle for a RPC to create 3 phase, with the low starting torque and no speed variations will not have this issue. If you want the suite of benefits that come with a vfd, such as braking, protection, variable speed, and more you have to make some changes in your machine. The transformer can be disconnected and you can feed 110 from another wall plug for mag switches and feed motors.
In your case, I suspect the transformer as causing the vfd to lose the magic smoke. At this point, Amazon is your friend, although they rarely are. You got it from them, they should take it back. Then you have to decide what to do for 3 phase

But where might I buy 4 conductor 14 gauge TECK cable by the foot in Alberta? I'd gladly convert my machines right away!

Anixter Edmonton
11403 - 186th Street N.W.
Edmonton, Alberta, T5S 2W6
Canada
Tel: 780-452-8171
Fax: 780-451-3888

 

[Dabbler]

Anixter Edmonton

Thanks!!!

 

[Dan Dubeau]

No transformer. 240v 20 amp single phase circuit powering a 2.2kw vevor VFD (a2-8022) wired to a 2hp 240v 3phase baldor motor. Motor ran fine off teco VFD yesterday. Vevor unit no bueno. No load on the motor.

Settings I changed
(start up frequency) pn02 - 60hz
(accel time) pn08 - Initially tried 5s like my teco, but it tripped. kept bumping it back up to the default 50s in 20s increments, but it would never fully come up to speed without tripping. would get to about 30-35hz before tripping everytime.
(deccel time) pn09 - 10s
(max freq) pn10 - 60hz
(min freq) pn11 - 1.5hz (I set at 60, but could not get the motor to even spin until it was back down under 5)
(motor rating freq) pn12 - 60hz

That's it. Didn't play with braking or anything else. Didn't get that far.....Not sure if I'm missing anything simple or not. I kept getting LU-U errors which is Acceleration undervoltage, and it says to increase accel time....

I was going to try and wire up the mill motor to it to see if it just didn't like the shaper motor, but the smoke came out.....

If I smoked it doing soemthing stupid I shouldn't have I can live with that. As long as I learn what went wrong, and educate myself moving forward. If it's defective, or just porrly made and not up to the task of running this motor, that's fine too. I'll send it back, and buy a more reputable one. I figured it would be ok, being slighly overated for the load.

 

[Dan Dubeau]

And yes, Those terminals are 14g. I didn't have bigger ones yesterday, so I was barely able to squeeze and crimp the 12awg wire into the 14g terminal, but the proper ones I ordered yesterday just arrived via amazon. That's not the problem, but I just wanted to point it out preemptively before somebody calls me out on it ....

 

[Dan Dubeau]

Tough to see from the angle, but it trips outs around 32hz on ramp up. I think that pass was set to 50s.

 

[Ironman]

No transformer. 240v 20 amp single phase circuit powering a 2.2kw vevor VFD (a2-8022) wired to a 2hp 240v 3phase baldor motor. Motor ran fine off teco VFD yesterday. Vevor unit no bueno. No load on the motor.

I was going to try and wire up the mill motor to it to see if it just didn't like the shaper motor, but the smoke came out.....

If I smoked it doing somemthing stupid I shouldn't have I can live with that. As long as I learn what went wrong, and educate myself moving forward. If it's defective, or just porrly made and not up to the task of running this motor, that's fine too. I'll send it back, and buy a more reputable one. I figured it would be ok, being slighly overated for the load.

It looks like it was crap from the day it was born. UNLESS....it likes to smoke after sex. IIRC, there is a setting up in the P108 or somewhere that has to be changed also. That locks the startup freq to 60 or whatever you set.
I don't think you did any thing wrong. The transformer I was talking about is a small one that powers the mag switches and is on board the 3 phase mill. But you are using a shaper so that is not applicable, unless you have mag switches on it.

I do recall a variable dc power supply I bought, now that you mention it. Vevor wanted a home movie and lots of cleavage, so I showed them a plumbers crack.
But meantime I figured out I had hooked it up backwards, and popped a large diode on the board. We did the do-see-do for a while and then Vevor sent me my money back. I turned around and bought a bigger power supply from them with it, and got a diode from mouser and soldered it in, so now I have two power supplies.

 

[Ironman]

I did some searches on old motors not liking a vfd. I figure that theory smells, I don't know.
So from them that's doing it here is an answer.

Re: Is a VFD good or bad for old 3 phase motors?​ 04/25/2019 12:08 PM

There are several issues with this. First off is the winding insulation. VFDs work by “tricking” a motor into reacting to a string of DC pulses as if it is AC power. In creating those DC pulses, the wiring between the drive and motor can act like capacitors and great higher voltage pulses that are superimposed on the circuits, then those bounce back and forth between the drive and motor in waves (called “reflected waves”) that build up to being spikes that are as much as 2.5 - 4x the normal voltage. In 480V drives then, it’s not uncommon to see these spikes reach over 1400V, sometimes as much as 2000V. Older motors used magnet wire in the windings that had 1000V insulation, later 1200V, both of which are inadequate when subjected to these stresses. The thing is that on older motors, you have no way of knowing what was used unless the mfr is still available to ask, and good luck with that even if. But on 230V motors, that 1200V insulation is fine and if the distance from drive to motor is short, even 1000V is OK. The other aspect is with the bearings. The same effects that cause the reflected waves also cause a static voltage to build up between the stator and rotor and once that builds up to being higher than the dielectric resistance of the grease, it will jump across the bearings and races. In doing so, it causes little microscopic pits, called EDM (Electric Discharge Machining; like welders and plasma cutters) and over time these pits become frost-like and then eventually grooved flutes that destroy the bearings and races. Inverter duty motors take measures to prevent this, older motors didn’t because that issue didn’t exist on a widespread basis. There are retrofit “shaft grounding rings” that you can add to existing motors to deal with this risk If you can keep the VFD within 25ft (linear) of the motor, the voltage and bearing issues are unlikely to affect you, so long as you resist the temptation to get rid of the “whine” that the motors make on a VFD by increasing what’s called the “carrier frequency”, which is the rate at which the DC pulses are fired. Increasing the CF will move the sound out of the range of human ears, but makes the motor problems worse, especially on older motors. A third aspect is cooling of the motor. ODP and TEFC motors rely on shaft mounted fans to move air across them to keep them cool. The fans then are slowed down with the motor speed and the way these fans work means that the air flow drops faster than the speed change. So at slow speeds, the motor receives less cooling effect and can burn up without being overloaded. If you add a separately powered blower to move air across the motor when operating slower, you can solve the heating issue too. Or, as many people do, you use your older motor until it dies, then replace it with a newer inverter duty motor. It depends on what the down-time will cost you.

 

[Dan Dubeau]

It looks like it was crap from the day it was born. UNLESS....it likes to smoke after sex. IIRC, there is a setting up in the P108 or somewhere that has to be changed also. That locks the startup freq to 60 or whatever you set.
I don't think you did any thing wrong. The transformer I was talking about is a small one that powers the mag switches and is on board the 3 phase mill. But you are using a shaper so that is not applicable, unless you have mag switches on it.

I do recall a variable dc power supply I bought, now that you mention it. Vevor wanted a home movie and lots of cleavage, so I showed them a plumbers crack.
But meantime I figured out I had hooked it up backwards, and popped a large diode on the board. We did the do-see-do for a while and then Vevor sent me my money back. I turned around and bought a bigger power supply from them with it, and got a diode from mouser and soldered it in, so now I have two power supplies.

Thanks for the vote of confidence that I didn't screw it up. Claim submitted to vevor, so we'll see how it plays out from here.