Powerflex 700 DPI Faults

[Mark Snodgrass]

Does anyone have a cause/solution for why PF700 drives have intermittent Port 5 DPI Faults (F85), which is the internal connection fault. I have seen some suggestions of a firmware issue causing it, but of my 4 drives I currently have a problem with, they have 3 different revisions (3.002, 4.006, 9.001). They are all using 20-comm-E cards with revision 4.001, could this be the issue? We had another drive at one time that had the same issue with 20-comm-R cards, until we used up all the older cards then the problem went away.

The problem mostly occurs overnight (we only run one shift), but sometimes faults during the day while we are running.

I know this has been an ongoing issue for Allen Bradley in the past, and I would like to find a solution to this problem so I can worry about other things.


Thanx
Mark Snodgrass

 

[PLC Pie Guy]

I have had the very same issue with Powerflex 40. I have a cabinet with 6 drives in it. When I came to work in this plant I walked in to 4 of 6 drives displaying intermittent DPI loss. Once a day, once a week. This would fault the drive( as it was configured to do on DPI loss). After replacing one of the drives that communication completly failed on and then having the same issue with the new drive I realized there was something going on. I ended up re-running all my motor leads in drive cables as they were all ran together in a single PVC conduit with one common ground wire. Since I changed this and got rid of my noise issues I have not had a single DPI loss event. Also before changing the motor leads I had Hardy Scale controller damaged from the noise as well as a few 20-COMM-E cards. Hardy said the controller looked like it had been struck by lighning! All from induced noise. I learned a thing or two on that one. Maybe not at all your issue but pertainent none the less.

 

[Mark Snodgrass]

That is something to look into. The drives I have a problem with are in an older installation. In our new installation with many more drives, we don't have these issues, the drives are using shielded motor leads.

 

[Mark Snodgrass]

Anybody else with a suggestion, wont be able to replace wiring anytime soon.