Powerflex 700 Need Help

Sean Wing

Member
Join Date
Aug 2011
Location
West Virginia
Posts
1
Hello, I work at a small family owned hardwood lumber mill in Elkins, WV. We use a Powerflex 700 AC Drive 200 HP for our bandmill. This morning our bandmill wouldn't start, so our maintenance man went into the electrical room, turned off the main switch for the bandmill. Then turned it back on. After just a few seconds, a loud bang came from our Powerflex 700 unit. We opened it up, and found the part that blew. It is SP-193092-A01, and its description is "ASSY,PCB,RA,INVERTER SNUB" We contacted Allen-Bradley and were told when that part blows usually the whole unit is damaged. They quoted us $12,250 to replace it, and $9,420 to repair it. That is a very huge cost for us right now that we don't have the money for. Can any of you confirm that we will probably need to incur these costs to fix/replace the unit. The part sells for $19.95 at PLC hardware, but they say it is unavailable. Also, would it be possible to find a used Powerflex 700 unit anywhere? Any help you guys can give is MUCH appreciated. Thank you

Sean Wing
 
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Hello, I work at a small family owned hardwood lumber mill in Elkins, WV. We use a Powerflex 700 AC Drive 200 HP for our bandmill. This morning our bandmill wouldn't start, so our maintenance man went into the electrical room, turned off the main switch for the bandmill. Then turned it back on. After just a few seconds, a loud bang came from our Powerflex 700 unit. We opened it up, and found the part that blew. It is SP-193092-A01, and its description is "ASSY,PCB,RA,INVERTER SNUB" We contacted Allen-Bradley and were told when that part blows usually the whole unit is damaged. They quoted us $12,250 to replace it, and $9,420 to repair it. That is a very huge cost for us right now that we don't have the money for. Can any of you confirm that we will probably need to incur these costs to fix/replace the unit. The part sells for $19.95 at PLC hardware, but they say it is unavailable. Also, would it be possible to find a used Powerflex 700 unit anywhere? Any help you guys can give is MUCH appreciated. Thank you Sean Wing

The VFD does two good things for you
1. Gives you a soft start and ramp to speed
2. Gives you variable speed control

Soft start is a good thing and ramping a band type head rig is a good thing in my mind so you need that.

DO you really need variable speed control on the band saw? I think it could come in right handy but that is your decision based on your needs and wants.

Dan Bentler
 
I work for a pretty large sawmill in Princeton, WV and our bandmills use to have VFD's on them. In the past few years we have switched them over to soft starters and have found them much more reliable and cost effective. I recommend a Saftronics or Benshaw. The Benshaws are a little cheaper, we bought our Benshaw from West Electric in Morgantown.
You can also contact Performance Drives in Bluefield, WV. They usually keep a stock of AB drives and may be able to get the parts for you at a decent price:
http://www.perdrives.com/Home.php
Bob Rolen is the salesman I deal with if you want to contact them.
 
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I second Benshaw as a good alternative for a soft start. If you need speed control I am afraid you are going to need to shell out for a drive. You may be able to find a less expensive replacement than the AB but not much for a drive that size.

It happens but drives don't generally just blow up for no reason. You should review the entire electrical installation before powering up another drive or the next one could go bang as well.
 
If you have to change it out go with Yaskawa. You will be glad you did. Yaskawa is an all around better bet.
 
If you have to change it out go with Yaskawa. You will be glad you did. Yaskawa is an all around better bet.

Yaskawa?

I have about ten of them for the past four years and I know absolutely nothing about them. I did have to open the panel once to troubleshoot one after a motor let out the magic smoke. Sure enough, the drive was showing us ground fault, and survived just fine.

We use A/B as a standard, but only because most of our drives are on DeviceNet, and the money has already been spent and the config and programming done.

If I had a wide open choice, Yaskawa and ABB would be at the top of the list based on my limited experiences. I like the relative user friendliness of the PF70/700, its comms options, and they have been quite reliable for us too. The PF4/40s are no better than anybody else's drives in my opinion.

Definitely something else is wrong external to the drive for it to fail, so follow allscots advice and check everything you can think of before starting back up. Run a meggar test on the whole motor power circuit at the very least (with the drive disconnected from the leads).
 
Yaskawa?

I have about ten of them for the past four years and I know absolutely nothing about them. I did have to open the panel once to troubleshoot one after a motor let out the magic smoke. Sure enough, the drive was showing us ground fault, and survived just fine.

We use A/B as a standard, but only because most of our drives are on DeviceNet, and the money has already been spent and the config and programming done.

If I had a wide open choice, Yaskawa and ABB would be at the top of the list based on my limited experiences. I like the relative user friendliness of the PF70/700, its comms options, and they have been quite reliable for us too. The PF4/40s are no better than anybody else's drives in my opinion.

Definitely something else is wrong external to the drive for it to fail, so follow allscots advice and check everything you can think of before starting back up. Run a meggar test on the whole motor power circuit at the very least (with the drive disconnected from the leads).

I second ABB, Yaskawa must be good too as I have worked in a couple of plants that had them and never had to touch one. I have never been overly impressed with any of the pflex drives from a reliability standpoint, they are extremely easy to program though and as you said lots of comm options.

We use Parker SSD exclusively. Very reliable and flexible. There is a learning curve with them. With their block programming capability you can do a lot of things inside the drive that might require a PLC or relay logic to acomplish with other drives.
 
Parker SSD, ABB, Yaskawa, Toshiba, then Baldor (only because we had a bunch of them), those are my choices.
Once you get up in that range the price climb as well.

I have had the PF family, 70, 700 of drives fail 4 to 1 to an old 1336. one of the RA reps told me the power section on the PF family is marginal at best. he also stated that 90% of you failures are in that section.
 

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