selection of the best ac drive

hi friends,
iam doin ma internship in a manufacturing plant and my project is on standardization of vfd's in the plant. here there are drives of allan bradley(powerflex 4, 40, 400), telemechanique(altivar 31, 61)and siemens(micromaster 420/440)..so i want a comparision of these drives and den need to select the best drive out of it.. could u pls list down the different features provided by dese different drives and help me select the best drive out of dis..and also the selection of the drive must be justified...
pls do reply.....i dont hv much tym left..have to complete the project fast...

with luv,
raul

Hi,
I would base my choice on an availability of support and most common used in your area.
My personal preference is Allen-Bradley, as least complicated to program, good communication options and having good reputation at least in US. I surprised you are not mentioned ABB. It would be my #2 choice.
I don't know about Telemechanique, but I was working with Seimens and found it most complicated to program.

We almost always use Altivar 61/71. They're easy to set up, and we've never had any problems with them.

I've never tried Powerflex.

Simens on the other hand is, as stated above, not easy to set up, and together with Siemens poor support it means that we stay away from them if possible.

As Val said and Dick DV has said elsewhere the main deciding factor is which maker will give you best local support.

Dan Bentler

We have had nothing but issues with our AB drives. Knowing nothing about the drives by the other manufacturers I would vote against AB.

Chris_Smith said:

We have had nothing but issues with our AB drives. Knowing nothing about the drives by the other manufacturers I would vote against AB.

Click to expand...

I have a large process that uses a dozen or so drives, AC and DC, all Allen Bradley. It's been running for nearly 8 years now, haven't had a single issue with them.

Are you sure you didn't mean ABB?

But really, it's all about local support. Have your distributor reps come visit and discuss it with them.

Actually, standardizing on any brand in any location is a hopeless dream if the purpose is somehow to reduce training and software costs.

Drive technology is rolling over so fast that, even with the same manufacturer, you are going to see new products coming out every 3-4 years and, you guessed it, they will be different enough that retraining will be necessary. And, of course, you will be purchasing new software too.

That's another reason why local support is so important. You will need them to get thru these transitions.

I did not like Allen Bradley drives all that much before the Powerflex came out. I did like the fact that their manuals were very good, their HMIs very user friendly too, but the reliability and performance was ont great.

We have lots of PF700s that are very reliable and all have line-side (input) reactors. Out of about 150 drives, I have seen two failures in 3-1/2 years.

We have lots powerflex 4 and 40 drives that are less reliable, but easy to set up, nice looking in the panel, ethernet and devicenet capable, etc.

We have two antique ABB drives that I know nothing about. I haven't ever had to crack the manual, heck I don't even know the part number. That is a testament to reliability.

We also have two panels in a nasty environment full of Yaskawa drives. I didn't know they were there and have been running for 3+ years, until I was asked to troubleshoot what ended up being a phase to phase short that surely would have killed a Powerflex Component (read disposable, 4 and 40) series drive. So far, no Yaskawa failures.

We have some Toshiba drives, and they seem pretty good, although less tolerant to ground faults (damp windings) and not quite as user friendly. They need a motor to have at least 120megohms to ground at 500v in order not to fault, so they point out failing motors early, which has been a good thing many times, aside from the loss of production caused by the faults. I have seen a couple of them croak too

Our PF700s have survived many powerlead shorts so they get a thumbs up. I think the line reactors has extended their MTBF in our plant.

Paul

We are mostly using Siemens and Control Techniques drives. In performance both of them are good but being user friendly side, I will go with CT because Siemens has a very complicated parameter list and manuals are not very easy to read but on the other side you can get a good help from Siemens by phone or mail. If you are considering commisiniong time I wouldnt prefer Siemens if I was not used to it.

I have never used Rockwell drives before so cant say anything about them. In Turkey Rockwell is not as dominant as it is in USA or Europe.

Altivar drives are quite good as far as I know also.

It seems that there are not a lot of Lenze users on the forum. We have a few macines on site full of these babies. Agreed they are not that easy to setup but once they are fine tuned, they run for years. They are very tough, although we have had some failures, mainly because the electrician tries to disconnect a motor while the drive is on as most of our drives run in torque mode.
So Lenze definately gets a thumbs up from me

In several manufacturers I've found drives that I liked and others from the same company that I did not like. As DickDV pointed out it al depends on how old that series of drive is. For example my favourite drive is the G5 series from Omron however I don't like the 3G3 series. I also find Powerflex drives from AB reliable. More so than the 1336 series but that may be more due to application needs than the series themselves. One thing I've learned is that every manufacturer will have drives that work better than others. I use AB and Omron primarily for several reasons. The literature is fairly straight forward. The local support is readily available. The needs for reliability justify the extra cost of good solid drives.

thank u very much frens.............i hv 1 more question for u ppl....could u help me compare the differnt aspects like ease of installation, ease of programming, flexibility, reliability and cost of allan bradley(powerflex 40,400), telemechanique(altivar 31,61), siemens(micromaster 420,440)and yaskawa.........
with luv
raul

Ease of Installation -- they're all about the same

Ease of Programming -- they're all about the same

Flexibility -- depends on the rest of your system... Also, the ones you've picked are the "budget" versions for each brand. They'll be more limited in their capabilities than others (e.g. PowerFlex 70 has MUCH more to offer than the PowerFlex 40)

Reliability -- they're all about the same

Cost -- depends on your relationship with local distributors. The price I pay will likely not be the same price you pay.



For the most part, they are all "good" (though personally I would never pick a Yaskawa, but that's just me...) They'll all do what they're advertised to do.

The difference, as you've already been told more than once, is your local support. Which one(s) are well represented in your area? Which one(s) do you personally have the most experience with? Which one(s) are already installed in your plant? Why would you "standardize" on a brand that you're not already using???

briancr said:

It seems that there are not a lot of Lenze users on the forum. We have a few macines on site full of these babies. Agreed they are not that easy to setup but once they are fine tuned, they run for years. They are very tough, although we have had some failures, mainly because the electrician tries to disconnect a motor while the drive is on as most of our drives run in torque mode.
So Lenze definately gets a thumbs up from me

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I use the AC Tech line from Lenze. For the price they are real hard to beat. On the AB drives...decent but to get the most out of AB drives you really have to be using an AB based control system. Same goes for the Siemens...

Like others have said...look at your local support..