jraef
Member
I've had two situations where there were seemingly large numbers of failures on PF40 drives. Both cases ended up being heat related, where the OEM that built the panels failed to heed the installation instructions with regard to spacing and clearances. The common thread to them was that they installed wire duct above and below the drives that was less than the clearly stated 4" clear space requirement above and below the drives. In one case with dozens of failures, an original claim that the drives were failing "everywhere" ended up being a perceptional issue. They were ONLY failing in the panels where the duct was too close. In other panels where the ducts had the proper distance or the drives were stood off of the panel to have no obstruction of air flow, there were no failures.
Why does this seem to only affect the PF4s and 40s? It doesn't, I see it happen all the time with all brands of drives. Maybe it's because in the past 20 years, A-B sold more of those drives in North America to industrial users than all other competitors combined. More exposure to bad panel design practices results in more failures by numbers, but as a percentage of total units installed, it's likely the same as everyone. I still see it every day and in fact came across this again just last week in some food processing conveyor applications. A row of 8 PF40s in a Stainless Steel 4X box, no A/C, mounted touching each other side to side and 1" top and bottom to wire duct. The drive have actually lasted 5 yeasts, which surprises me quite frankly. I guess the OEM decided that the slots in the wire duct meant it doesn't obstruct air flow? That not in the least bit true. Whenever I lose a panel project to someone who says they can build it smaller and cheaper than me, that's the first thing I point out to the end users. It shocks me to see how many OEMs violate those installation practices. I think from their standpoint, they know the A-B drives will last longer than cheaper ones, so it gets them past their warranty period, after which it's the end users problem? I'm guessing here, but I see it a lot.
I've been replacing many of those with PF520s, for one reason because the clearances required are less; 2" above and below instead of 4". But in some panels I don't even have that! People also seem to think that if there is an A/C unit, you get around that requirement and that helps, but only to make the failure take longer. The PF520s also can take higher heat if de-rated, even up to 70C if an aux cooling fan accessory is added. That's been my go-to solution and in those cases the failures have stopped.
Around 2004-2006, EVERYONE in the electronics business who did business in Taiwan suffered from what was called the "capacitor plague". You can search that term and read about it. In a nutshell though, a large Taiwanese capacitor mfr stole the secret sauce formula for the electrolyte used in high density caps that a competitor was selling. Turned out the formula was fake and the caps failed en-mass in 1-2 years. But by the time this showed up in the market, billions and billions were out there. Purportedly this cost $3 billion in failures at Dell alone. The PF4s and 40s are contract manufactured for A-B in Taiwan and were hit hard by that. A-B did have a recall in 2006 I believe, but user only heard about it if they registered their drive warranties or had a Tech Connect contract. I was using a lot of Teco drives at the time, also made in Taiwan, we got hit hard by that too. The Teco drives were made by a sister company names Taian, who also brand labeled their drives to dozens of other suppliers as their "low end" product. The same was true of Delta, another Taiwanese supplier, who also brand labels their drives to several other big named sources (such as AutomationDirect). All of them had capacitor plague problems, but because most of their customers were low volume users, it didn't get a lot of attention.
Why does this seem to only affect the PF4s and 40s? It doesn't, I see it happen all the time with all brands of drives. Maybe it's because in the past 20 years, A-B sold more of those drives in North America to industrial users than all other competitors combined. More exposure to bad panel design practices results in more failures by numbers, but as a percentage of total units installed, it's likely the same as everyone. I still see it every day and in fact came across this again just last week in some food processing conveyor applications. A row of 8 PF40s in a Stainless Steel 4X box, no A/C, mounted touching each other side to side and 1" top and bottom to wire duct. The drive have actually lasted 5 yeasts, which surprises me quite frankly. I guess the OEM decided that the slots in the wire duct meant it doesn't obstruct air flow? That not in the least bit true. Whenever I lose a panel project to someone who says they can build it smaller and cheaper than me, that's the first thing I point out to the end users. It shocks me to see how many OEMs violate those installation practices. I think from their standpoint, they know the A-B drives will last longer than cheaper ones, so it gets them past their warranty period, after which it's the end users problem? I'm guessing here, but I see it a lot.
I've been replacing many of those with PF520s, for one reason because the clearances required are less; 2" above and below instead of 4". But in some panels I don't even have that! People also seem to think that if there is an A/C unit, you get around that requirement and that helps, but only to make the failure take longer. The PF520s also can take higher heat if de-rated, even up to 70C if an aux cooling fan accessory is added. That's been my go-to solution and in those cases the failures have stopped.
Around 2004-2006, EVERYONE in the electronics business who did business in Taiwan suffered from what was called the "capacitor plague". You can search that term and read about it. In a nutshell though, a large Taiwanese capacitor mfr stole the secret sauce formula for the electrolyte used in high density caps that a competitor was selling. Turned out the formula was fake and the caps failed en-mass in 1-2 years. But by the time this showed up in the market, billions and billions were out there. Purportedly this cost $3 billion in failures at Dell alone. The PF4s and 40s are contract manufactured for A-B in Taiwan and were hit hard by that. A-B did have a recall in 2006 I believe, but user only heard about it if they registered their drive warranties or had a Tech Connect contract. I was using a lot of Teco drives at the time, also made in Taiwan, we got hit hard by that too. The Teco drives were made by a sister company names Taian, who also brand labeled their drives to dozens of other suppliers as their "low end" product. The same was true of Delta, another Taiwanese supplier, who also brand labels their drives to several other big named sources (such as AutomationDirect). All of them had capacitor plague problems, but because most of their customers were low volume users, it didn't get a lot of attention.
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