Failure of Old Indramat Servo Drives

Jayesh Shirpurkar · Jan 11, 2006

I've powered ON some machines after 18 months, & found 10 Out of 27 Indramat TDM drives not working. What could be reason for this failure

keithkyll · Jan 11, 2006

I'm not familiar with Indramat. My guess is the parameters are battery-backed, and the battery is dead. Did you check parameters?

Jayesh Shirpurkar · Jan 11, 2006

Those are 1991 analog drives, no battery backup.

davidg68124 · Jan 11, 2006

If they are a servo, then there are setup parameters stored in the drive. There is most likely a cmos battery on the main board, so you really should look at this.

David

geniusintraining · Jan 11, 2006

Be more specific on the part when you said "not working"

Do you have to replace them (there smoked), or you lost the program/parameter listing

Capacitor back up? Something drained the cap?

DickDV · Jan 11, 2006

After being idle for 18 months, you likely destroyed the DC bus capacitors by powering up fully. Capacitors that old need to be "reformed" by bringing the power up in small steps to allow the caps time to adjust to the presence of charge on their plates again.

If this has happened and, as you report, the drives are analog, there is no economical way to recover them and they must be replaced. Drives over about 10 years old have most if not all of their useful life behind them.

geniusintraining · Jan 11, 2006

DickDV said:
Capacitors that old need to be "reformed" by bringing the power up in small steps to allow the caps time to adjust to the presence of charge on their plates again.

DickDV,
I did this once, as it was suggested to me, I put 120 Vac to the 480 over night, started up with no prob. Do you have another way, starting lower?, or do you have a procedure that you follow?, the company that I work for tends to remove equipment, put it in storage for a year or two, then bring it back, I think this would be a good practice. But I want to do it the right way.

Thanks,

DickDV · Jan 11, 2006

In my experience, each drive mfgr has their own procedure, right or wrong. I would ask that same question of the mfgr of the equipment you deal with.

I have not done this in years because almost everything I get involved with is new. But I know the requirement is out there somewhere.

davidg68124 · Jan 11, 2006

I wouldn't have thought of this Dick, but I will remember this. Like you, I only deal with new stuff mostly. But on the occassion that I see something older, it is already too late as the maintenace team usually calls me as a last resort.

David

Leadfoot · Jan 11, 2006

A tried and true method is to use a 120 vac variac, a 120 to 480/240 transformer, a bridge rectifier and a known good filter cap.

You have a variable DC supply 0-700 VDC. I like to isolate the caps if possible. Some IGBT's do not like having bus volts and no -voltage on the gates. This also keeps the switching power supplies from attempting to come on and possibly burning up.

I start out with 25 VDC and let is cook about 30 minutes. Then bring it up 25 volts for 30 minutes until 100 vdc. Then I raise it by 50 volts for 30 minutes. Most 400 volt drives have the caps series for voltage purposes. I connect all of them in parallel and can then reform all caps up to the 400 volt level. A string of light bulbs provides a good discharge path.

Yes it takes some time, but replacing caps or drives co$t$ too.

Pego · Jan 11, 2006

This is what Siemens says about reforming the capacitors of the Micromaster vfd.
http://support.automation.siemens.com/GB/llisapi.dll?func=ll&objId=1960441&lang=en&siteid=cseus&aktprim=0&objaction=csview&display=p

ilikbeer · Jan 12, 2006

What series of TDM?

Although we do not have the TDMs, the manual does reference that there is a "Battery Box" on the TDM1 & TDM2s. This located at the X5 Terminal Strip. Again according to the manual #1A 74725 Rev. C.1 4/92

What are the conditions of the LEDs?
BLC1,2 & 3
+/-15V and +24V
Tach
Power
RF
Bb
BS
TS
TU

Jayesh Shirpurkar · Jan 12, 2006

Drives are TDM 1.2 & TDM 2.1,
To the best of my knowledge there is no battery for these drives.
LED status is : +24V, + - 15 VDC, Tacho, Bb LEDS OFF, RF LED ON without command.

Rick Densing · Jan 12, 2006

ilikbeer said:
What series of TDM?

Although we do not have the TDMs, the manual does reference that there is a "Battery Box" on the TDM1 & TDM2s. This located at the X5 Terminal Strip. Again according to the manual #1A 74725 Rev. C.1 4/92

I believe that "battery box" is for a DC input to give a test analog signal.

All the indramat guys that I have worked with use this term. Suprisingly, the signal comes from, of all places, a box with a battery in it.

LEN · Jan 13, 2006

If LED status is :

+24V, + - 15 VDC, Tacho, Bb LEDS = OFF

The Indramat Servo Drive Amplifiers are feed from the TVM Power Supply Unit. If the TDM LED's are as stated then check the TVM unit. The TVM has capacitors if left sitting for a long period of time of no use should be reformed prior to running.

Failure of Old Indramat Servo Drives

Jayesh Shirpurkar

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