Electrician

darrell

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Iam an electrician, where i work we have an abb ac drive that controls 3 300hp motors for exhaust fans. on 1 of thosr fan drives we have a plc that sends info to a touch screen which shows all 3 fans , if running or not and also, we can change the direction for which we need them to run, as wellas start them and change the speed of them. i have no schematic as the engineering co. that designed this system no longer here. can u guys give me an idea or maybe seen this before? as to how u think this system is set up?
 
This is a pretty standard setup!! but could be setup hundreds of ways!!

1. what kind of plc is it?

2. What kind of hmi is it?

3. what drive model is it. Abb do various types.

4. Are the comms on RS485, profibus, modbus etc?

There is nothing special about the system, just need more detail.
 
3 three hundred HP exaust fans on one drive? I'm impressed! (I'd hate to be the one that has to change that motor!)

info is being sent from the drive to the PLC, then displayed on the screen. Since all three motors are on the same drive (who would do this?), then all motors go the same direction, speed, and share static/operation conditions as well. As far as programming, you'd have to get that from the PLC, and this would determine how the drive is set up & wired.
 
I think he has three drives and three fans:

on 1 of thosr fan drives we have a plc that sends info to a touch screen which shows all 3 fans , if running or not

How can one be running and the others not, if not on three different drives?
 
Being that big he might have one big rectifier to generate a DC bus and then 3 inverters, one for each motor. Just a guess.

Darrell, need more info what PLC and what control network to the drive (S).
 
Hey fellows! I should have made it clear, we have 3 drives ACH 400 460 volt i will check the plc to see name brand, What is HMI , RS485, proibus/modbus? as u can see im not at all exp with PLC thats why im asking for help.
 
If you have a digital camera handy, perhaps you could take some photos of the drives, PLC and touch screen, and then post them here. It would probably save a little bit of time.

Some definitions;

HMI - an operator panel or touch screen.

RS485 - a specification for the hardware used in a certain type of serial communication. By using serial communication a PLC and a drive can share large quantities of data (speed, start/stop, current, voltage, etc) using just 2 or 3 wires.

Modbus - a communication protocol (language) for serial communication. The hardware specification is RS485.

Profibus - another communication protocol for serial communication. The hardware specification is also RS485.
 
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This is not an unusual PLC control setup - The size of the Drive motors are not the issue.
The ABB inverters use the same internal processors just larger heatsink and SCR's and of course increased cooling systems.
the drives can 'talk' to each other - so one PLS may be sending the Info and the other drives follow - can you indepently adjust all drives?

What is the actual problem you are facing as PLC control of one or more motors for direction speed and status is quite common in industry.
whether there be 3 or 10 motors
 

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