SMC Flex 150 on the way out?

[Tim Ganz]

I need to purchase a few Large soft starters for our plant and we prefer to stay Rockwell. We have purchased SMC Flex 150 in the past and they appear to be available but I noticed options are the anaconda cable and 20 comm cards for communications. This will be for a 375 amp application @ 480.

Is there another series I should be looking at?

 

[Tim Ganz]

So I guess it's SMC flex vs SMC 50? They both have bypass in the size we need. SMC 50 seems newer and might be a better choice? Any other considerations?

 

[Rson]

I just went to look for a soft-start myself. The 150-SMC is still listed as an Active product.

3 HP 150-F5NBR
to
400 HP 150-F480NBR

 

[Tim Ganz]

Yes I see now that it's still active but it has been out a long time. Does anyone know if the smc 50 would be a better choice?

 

[duckman]

Still great to see you havent learnt any manners in the time you keep coming back to this site, is that because you live in texas, or just your **** attitude, Hi from australia. Why cant you say hi, please or thankyou , not surprised you haven't changed in 14 years.

 

[Ken Moore]

A lot of folks have dropped soft starts and installed drives instead.
Drive prices are sometimes cheaper now days. If you don't kneed to control the speed, you can hard code the speed, and set an accel ramp to your needs.

 

[John Morris]

Still great to see you havent learnt any manners in the time you keep coming back to this site, is that because you live in texas, or just your **** attitude, Hi from australia. Why cant you say hi, please or thankyou , not surprised you haven't changed in 14 years.

Hmmmmm. Did i miss something. His conversation seems reasonable and to the point. Or do you guys have a "Thing".
Please use Caution when referencing the Greatest State in the Union!!!!!!!

 

[Tim Ganz]

Still great to see you havent learnt any manners in the time you keep coming back to this site, is that because you live in texas, or just your **** attitude, Hi from australia. Why cant you say hi, please or thankyou , not surprised you haven't changed in 14 years.

For your information I say please and Thank You a lot on here. I mean its a technical forum mostly comprised of grown men so I was not under the impression I needed to cover every question or reply with sugar and spice.

If you have no interest in my questions, help or remarks just move on nothing to get your panties in a wad about. I am not sure who got under your skin today but “THANKS” for going out of the way to make it my problem I really “APPRECIATE IT”

 

[jraef]

A lot of folks have dropped soft starts and installed drives instead.
Drive prices are sometimes cheaper now days. If you don't kneed to control the speed, you can hard code the speed, and set an accel ramp to your needs.

Not at 375A they are not! Soft starters are probably 25% of the cost of a VFD at that size. At 5HP, VFDs are absolutely cheaper, at 10HP, it's likely a push. But as power rating goes up, the delta increases logarithmically.

 

[jraef]

Yes I see now that it's still active but it has been out a long time. Does anyone know if the smc 50 would be a better choice?

SMC-50 is the current product and the future, which has more features and better control. But the SMC-Flex is not going anywhere for a while, because the SMC-50 does not yet go up above 480A and although that's not an issue for you here, there are still a lot of larger soft start applications where they need to keep the SMC-Flex around. The SMC-50 is also (as far as I know) not yet a "standard" offering in the MCCs, it is "Engineered To Order" still, whereas the SMC-Lex is still the standard MCC product if you want faster deliveries. (Note I said fastER, not fast...)

I personally like the SMC-50 better and if I had a choice, I would go that route. Some of the new features are kind of nice fluff, put in to appease the customers who were switching to other brands over the specsmanship, but some of them are downright useful, such as the linear speed ramping and expandable I/O, neither of which are available on the Flex.

Side note: They are ALL "Bulletin 150", the SMC-Flex and the SMC-50, as well as the older models (SMC-Dialog Plus, SMC-Dialog, and the original SMC). So saying "150 Flex" is kind of pointless.

 

[Tim Ganz]

SMC-50 is the current product and the future, which has more features and better control. But the SMC-Flex is not going anywhere for a while, because the SMC-50 does not yet go up above 480A and although that's not an issue for you here, there are still a lot of larger soft start applications where they need to keep the SMC-Flex around. The SMC-50 is also (as far as I know) not yet a "standard" offering in the MCCs, it is "Engineered To Order" still, whereas the SMC-Lex is still the standard MCC product if you want faster deliveries. (Note I said fastER, not fast...)

I personally like the SMC-50 better and if I had a choice, I would go that route. Some of the new features are kind of nice fluff, put in to appease the customers who were switching to other brands over the specsmanship, but some of them are downright useful, such as the linear speed ramping and expandable I/O, neither of which are available on the Flex.

Side note: They are ALL "Bulletin 150", the SMC-Flex and the SMC-50, as well as the older models (SMC-Dialog Plus, SMC-Dialog, and the original SMC). So saying "150 Flex" is kind of pointless.

Jraef

That lines up with what I was finding and you answered a lot of other questions I had with that so thank you very much. I am going to go with the SMC-50

On the AB verbiage what does Bulletin 150 or Bulletin in the AB world really mean anyway? I know its a way to classify product families but is there anything else?