Powerflex 40 comm loose on power down and power up

leighigh

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Join Date
Dec 2012
Location
Colorado
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I have 10 powerflex 40s. All on Ethernet. When the power is shut down to the drives and then turned back on 4 of the drives do not come back with the comm ports. They are blank. But as soon as I put them in manual and start them the comm ports start to work, and the communication with the PLC is fine until the drive is powered down and powered back up.
I have checked the configurations found no differences
 
How much time passes from the time you turn the switch to OFF to when you turn the switch to ON?

How far are the VFD's from the PLC?
Do all the VFD Ethernet cables go to 1 switch or to different switches?
 
the PLC is 2 feet from the VFD, the VFD just has to lose power till the display goes blank. All the VFDS are on the same switch. and the comm link works fine as soon as you set P36 to 0 start the VFD, then you can reset P36 back to 5 and it works fine untill the VFD is powerd back down from a E-stop or power failer.
 
That's definitely not normal.

Is there any chance there are MSG instructions in the controller intended to assist with the configuration of the drive that are instead resetting Parameter 36 ?

Are you using a 22-COMM-E on each drive, or are you connecting them in Multi-Drive Mode ?

The PowerFlex 4-series don't support "Auto Device Configuration", so that's not it.

Any chance that there's a short circuit or loose strand of conductor on a Local/Manual switch that is switching the drive to use the local reference instead of the network reference ?
 
P36 never changes by it self. The VFDs come up with the same settings that it was powerd down with. the strange thing is I have 10 VFDs in one cabnet only 4 are showing this failer. another strange thing is thay are all in sequince the frist 3 are good then the next 4 are bad then the next 3 are good. I also have some remote VFDs in a cabnet about 80 feet away were there are several outher VFDs doing the same thing. I im going to swap the 22-COMM-E cards between drives tomorrow to see if the problem fellows the card. Unforinitly I have been forced to keep the drives running for production.
when the drive first powers up the comm card has no sign of power at all. The LEDs are dark. as soon as you start the drive manualy by changeing p36 and pressing the start botton the card goes through its start up sequince and works just fine.
 
When the drive first powers up the comm card has no sign of power at all. The LEDs are dark. As soon as you start the drive manualy by changeing p36 and pressing the start botton the card goes through its start up sequince and works just fine.

That sounds like damaged hardware or a bizarre floating voltage issue, like pressing the Start button makes some sort of ground connection that completes a circuit... WEIRD.

Are the Ethernet cables shielded and grounded ?
 
I am not do not know about multi-drive mode. I did not set the system up I just seamed to have inherited the problem. I will know more tomorrow when I get some down time on the line.
 
I found it is not comm card the problem does not follow the card or cable, it stayes with the VFD.
Murphy is messing with me this week. I did no scrafice enough Rum and Tabacco to him.
 
Move the RJ45 Ethernet cable end from a "bad" VFD to a known good one.
Repeat test. See if problem follows cable route.


Where do all the drive Ethernet Cables go?
DO they all go to 1 large switch or do they go to small 4 port switches... which would explain why groups of 4 drives are not working.
 
Be wary of the puny little logic power supplies in these drives. I had one nicknamed the Lazarus drive. It was a spare that would go dead and then return to life sometimes after a power cycle. At one time, the +24v connections for all of this group of PF4 drives were all tied together and ran through a SLC DC output card. All the 0vdc connections on the drives were together too. So with all the drives logic power supplies in parallel (I think we had 7 of them) supplying DC power for that transistor output card, and the signals coming from the card back to the inputs on the drive, it just seemed like a bad idea... That output card also signaled an indicator lamp or two if I recall correctly.

We had all sorts of weirdness going on similar to what you report. They all had 22-comm-e cards and problems with MSGs failing too. I got out the prints, noted the abnormal design. After seeing the crew fight this a couple of more times, I changed the wiring, leaving all the drives' 0VDC terminals connected together and connected them to a separate 10amp power supply common, and used it as the output card power source for the hardwired signals to the drives. This stopped the random and multiple failures they were having, but that one Lazarus drive we kept around for entertainment and as an unreliable emergency backup.
 
Last edited:
I'm having similar problem with Powerflex 40p and 22-COMM-E card.
1.Problem Happens mostly on startup, after 12-24 hour shutdown.
2.Drive powers up, Upper comm card led will flicker for a split second, then all led are off.
3.If I leave this drive powered for 1-2 Hours, I called it warming up, then I cycle power to drive I might see a longer blink for upper LED.
4.AFter couple of restarts all communication lights start blinking and full communication is established.
5.If I have no time to wait, then replacing the drive fixes the problem.
6.Comm card is OK.

Drive is 22D-D2P3N104 SERIES A.MFD IN 2010 DEC 03
FRN:2.0
Its 1HP 380-480V Drive, but Happened with other models as well and in different Panels.
 

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