jraef
Member
You have a 16A rated soft starter.
You have a 1/3HP 480V motor, the FLA is likely in the area of 0.9A.
So if the motor is unloaded the current is likely even lower than that.
The SMC-3 (and most soft starters) need to see a rise to a minimum of 100% of their programmed motor current to pull in the bypass contactor, otherwise they will shut assuming the motor is not connected. In the case of a 16A rated unit, the motor current is not adjustable to a value of less than 5.3A. So even at Locked Rotor Current, that little tiny motor would not pull enough current to make the soft starter work.
By the way, you cannot program the OL protection to protect that motor either. You needed to use the smallest version of the SMC-3, the 3A unit, because the motor current can be set down to 1A (which may be as close as you can get with a soft starter).
You have a 1/3HP 480V motor, the FLA is likely in the area of 0.9A.
So if the motor is unloaded the current is likely even lower than that.
The SMC-3 (and most soft starters) need to see a rise to a minimum of 100% of their programmed motor current to pull in the bypass contactor, otherwise they will shut assuming the motor is not connected. In the case of a 16A rated unit, the motor current is not adjustable to a value of less than 5.3A. So even at Locked Rotor Current, that little tiny motor would not pull enough current to make the soft starter work.
By the way, you cannot program the OL protection to protect that motor either. You needed to use the smallest version of the SMC-3, the 3A unit, because the motor current can be set down to 1A (which may be as close as you can get with a soft starter).
