Danfoss Drive FC300 Earth fault

nightex

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Join Date
Jun 2007
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Šiauliai
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Hi

I have little problem figuring out problem with this drive. Resistance between earth and phases is about 7Moms, is it enough? When problem, appears I just disconnect and connect buses inside FC300, and problem disappears for month or week. Seems to me that problem is with electronics. Any suggestion for further diagnostics?

Thanks
 
only a guess
the internal capacitors may de screwed
contact Danfoss the drive may need to be fixed by them
 
Unfortunately it is quite a common problem with danfoss, I have seen this a couple of times. The drives electronics are probably defective, maybe the the Current transformer card or the main control card.

The good news is that danfoss sells them as spares if you are a little adventurous and want to try fixing it yourself or you can have it repaired by a third party.
 
Thx for answers. We will try to change motors, if this will not help I guess we try to contact danfoss supplier. Those motors are vry rusty and crying for maintainence. Other two new motors are now ready for work and will be mounted soon. The end scenario, I guess, will be replacement of VFD.
 
nightex said:
Hi

I have little problem figuring out problem with this drive. Resistance between earth and phases is about 7Moms, is it enough?

Not for me, and not for some VFDs and it's mode dependent, not sure if its adjustable via parameters in a Danfoss drive. What was the voltage of the test? At 500v on a Fluke Megohmeter, I look for >100Mohm. I have seen old V/Hz vfds that will work down to about 2-3Mohms, and my big Toshiba's won't clear the fault if the reading is less than about 120Mohm!

nightex said:
When problem, appears I just disconnect and connect buses inside FC300, and problem disappears for month or week. Seems to me that problem is with electronics. Any suggestion for further diagnostics?

Thanks
You should be able to power cycle the drive without opening it by removing incoming power. I suggest verifying the DC Bus during this bleed down time for safety and to note if it doesn't discharge at a nice smooth rate. I have found simple blown components in various VFD input circuits that were easier to repair in place on >50HP drives.

But all drives I have worked with consider a ground fault to be the worst of the worst kind of fault, so they force a hard power down (wait up to five minutes) and reboot. During this time, you are expected to raise the leakage resistance to an acceptable level.

Horsepower, type of conductor and rough length could be important factors as well as any local disconnects. Always disconnect the motor leads at the vfd and megger the entire circuit "as seen" by the VFD while ensuring you don't zap the poor drive output with 500-1000V, then if the readings are bad, disconnect the wiring from the motor and test each separately. Cheap wire becomes perforated with conduction when noisy VFD spikes beat on it for years. We have washdown, so local disconnects are the most frequent offenders of opne phases and ground faults, followed by breakdown of cheap wire, but by then we have often toasted the motor too.

Paul
 
Last edited:
Not for me, and not for some VFDs and it's mode dependent, not sure if its adjustable via parameters in a Danfoss drive. What was the voltage of the test? At 500v on a Fluke Megohmeter, I look for >100Mohm. I have seen old V/Hz vfds that will work down to about 2-3Mohms, and my big Toshiba's won't clear the fault if the reading is less than about 120Mohm!


You should be able to power cycle the drive without opening it by removing incoming power. I suggest verifying the DC Bus during this bleed down time for safety and to note if it doesn't discharge at a nice smooth rate. I have found simple blown components in various VFD input circuits that were easier to repair in place on >50HP drives.

But all drives I have worked with consider a ground fault to be the worst of the worst kind of fault, so they force a hard power down (wait up to five minutes) and reboot. During this time, you are expected to raise the leakage resistance to an acceptable level.

Horsepower, type of conductor and rough length could be important factors as well as any local disconnects. Always disconnect the motor leads at the vfd and megger the entire circuit "as seen" by the VFD while ensuring you don't zap the poor drive output with 500-1000V, then if the readings are bad, disconnect the wiring from the motor and test each separately. Cheap wire becomes perforated with conduction when noisy VFD spikes beat on it for years. We have washdown, so local disconnects are the most frequent offenders of opne phases and ground faults, followed by breakdown of cheap wire, but by then we have often toasted the motor too.

Paul

When I tested with old megaometer on 1000V 7Mohm and on 1500V result was ~4Mohm.

We make disconnections inside drive because we suspect that contacts could be oxidative, which results in resistance between contacts in control circuits. This however is only speculation, the fact is that this procedure helps. We tried disconnecting drive from power for 10 min and no luck.

Thanks for advices. We always disconnect drives and other electronic devices before high voltage tests.

We also tested cables separately result was infinity.
 
...But all drives I have worked with consider a ground fault to be the worst of the worst kind of fault, so they force a hard power down (wait up to five minutes) and reboot. ...

Depending on the size of the Danfoss drive, 5 minutes may not be enough to completely drain down the caps, check the manual for actual time. A 15 to 125hp 480V takes 15 minutes for the DC bus to drain.
 
As MikeW said, it depends on the drive. But up to 40 min is what the manual says!

What is the size of the drive?

In the larger sizes you are able to exchange the Current Transducers, and if these are not calibrated you will get an Alarm 14. Doing a AMA or even a reduced AMA can help with this.

If the drive is old the CT's may also have drifted!

Another cause might be the flatcables connecting the Control Card, Power Card and Relay Card, if one of these have a bad connection you can also see Alarm 14.

Best regards,

Michal_dk
 
Hi

I have little problem figuring out problem with this drive. Resistance between earth and phases is about 7Moms, is it enough? When problem, appears I just disconnect and connect buses inside FC300, and problem disappears for month or week. Seems to me that problem is with electronics. Any suggestion for further diagnostics?

Thanks

We have had some VLT5000 from Dan Foss, which will get a false Earth Fault trip, for Bad Power boards, or a bad ribbon cable between the Control board, and the power board. Also, if the drive has been in service for a while, and it is not an Inverter/Heavy duty motor, I've heard that because of the switching frequency, you can get an earth fault, that won't show up on a Megger. If you think this might be the case, you can try lowering the switching frequency.
 
my earlier post may still be correct.
ABB have stated that, with a stored unused drive, the drives internal capacitors.

this may have nothing to do with your fault - BUT
 
We have had some VLT5000 from Dan Foss, which will get a false Earth Fault trip, for Bad Power boards, or a bad ribbon cable between the Control board, and the power board. Also, if the drive has been in service for a while, and it is not an Inverter/Heavy duty motor, I've heard that because of the switching frequency, you can get an earth fault, that won't show up on a Megger. If you think this might be the case, you can try lowering the switching frequency.

I will try that, thx :)
 
my earlier post may still be correct.
ABB have stated that, with a stored unused drive, the drives internal capacitors.

this may have nothing to do with your fault - BUT

Mmmm, this is like some kind of capacitor tests?

If you take capacitor and there is fault in dialectic is it possible that problem is kind off emerge and disappear?
 
the PDF I posted has been the cause of unused stored drives blowing up when first used
it may not be your issue - but the principle of a VSD is the same
- rectification to DC bus then Igbt control of the output.
so the issue may be related.

Hey - you have tried everything else - talk to DANFOS and raise this point with them - it is worth a try.
 
Are you certain you have no earth fault?

I know you stated you tested and had 7Mohms... I once had a situation where a drive was tripping intermittently and testing fine. I eventually traced to the glanding of the local isolator, a nick in a motor tail to the metal SWA gland, only showing due to machine vibration!

Is the motor cabling passing through a damp area?

Have you got a spare drive?

;.
 

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