Allen Bradley SMC soft starters...

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OOOPS

On other hand opportunity for "closure"
OK Okie how did it work out?

Dan Bentler

 

[OkiePC]

After my initial research, I studied what we already had installed on several compressors at this plant and went with them. I was pretty new here when I first started this thread. The boss put me in touch with RAM Industires (now owned by Schneider).

They made us a soft starter custom built as a wire for wire replacement of the old starter cabinet. The RAM is easy to set up, and their customer support is excellent. We have continued to use them for more upgrades each year, and once you get through the Schneider phone system and reach the same folks at RAM, they do great work. They include oil pump contactor options, and terminal strips with wire labelling to interface seamlessly with our original systems provided by Frick and FES. It was easy to switch over in an 8 hour day.

One of their reps was here for the first one I oversaw. He was extremely knowledgeable of the product and refrigeration compressors. They also build/repair large compressor motors.

The RAM DBS is rated for DOL starting in the event of a failure of the softstarter.

So far, we have only had problems with contactors, not the electronics. We did have one suffer lightning damage, and RAM had the replacement board in our hands overnight under warranty no charge.

The two contactor failures were very old ABB contactors that had been baking for many years, and the plastic aux. broke and hung on one of them. The other one had a warped arc chute. Those were replaced with drop-in backplanes since the old revision DBS would not mechanically fit wit the newer bypass contactor. Also very easy to replace the guts of the RAM.

I am sure the A/B SMC would have worked out okay, but the RAM was about 30% less expensive, fully customized and enclosed, and relieved me of he need to create electrical drawings and do the homework for the wiring changes, and accessories.

I highly recmomend RAM for special application large HP softstarters.

http://products.schneider-electric.us/solutions/hvac-pump-solutions/
http://www.schneider-electric.us/sites/us/en/solutions/hvac-pump-solutions/product-line-card.page

EDIT: Schneider still seems to have a bunch of broken links to the RAM Documents...it's a shame really...The RAM website was just fine before...

 

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Thanks for update Okie

Dan Bentler