A/B 160 Series Drive Replacement (D-NET)

OkiePC · Nov 30, 2010

We have two SLC/devicenet systems with a total of 61 small HP (All < 2HP) drives on devicenet that we need to deal with.

I wrote up a plan to replace them in groups of four with PF40 drives at a cost of apx. $3900 per group of four.

The boss wants to save some money.

Any good drive recommendations that can happily plug into our devicenet systems (with scan list changes, of course!), fit the small footprint (I have a little wiggle room in the panels, about 4" extra horizontal space between most of these drives), and cost less than about $950 per 2HP drive including d-net comm board?

Please share your opinions.

Paul

cpmiller · Nov 30, 2010

Yaskawa V1000 with a Dnet card runs me just under $500

RDS · Nov 30, 2010

Take a look at ABB drives. They seem to be aggressively priced and can do Devicenet with an appropriate comm card. ACS550 series is what you want. I am working on a 50HP drive system right now and ABB is way less than half the cost of an AB.

bguinn · Nov 30, 2010

Okie,

If you use the PF40, you don't have to get devicenet cards for all of them. The PF4's and PF40's can be connected on their RS-485 comm ports with the Device net module only in the first drive. I don't remember the limit on the number of drives to connect on RS-485, but I believe it is somewhere between 5 and 8. AB also sells a little black box that holds the 22 comm D then connects drives on RS-485. I have used one of these myself but only connected 2 PF4's on it. I'm sorry I don't remember the part numbers and I am not at work today to get them.

The Yaskawa's V1000 is a great drive and more capable than a PF40. Probably more like a PF70. Only drawback to the V1000 is that it does not mount to din rail.

Gil47 · Nov 30, 2010

With the industry I think you work in, pretty much similar to mine, I am going to guess that these motors are fans that run at the same speed when they are running.

What we have done in that case is get a larger drive, feed to a block of up to 10 motor breakers and then onto each motor, our drives use DNet also

OkiePC · Nov 30, 2010

Gil47 said:
With the industry I think you work in, pretty much similar to mine, I am going to guess that these motors are fans that run at the same speed when they are running.

What we have done in that case is get a larger drive, feed to a block of up to 10 motor breakers and then onto each motor, our drives use DNet also

Actually, most are conveyors of boxed products en route to palletizing areas, so they can't be grouped to common drives. Some are empty and full pallet conveyors. Many of them run at 60Hz, but most have some adjustment to the speed for smooth product flow, and many of them have fairly high duty cycles and smooth semi-coordinated accel and decel times are very useful, if not required.

I had thought about the PF4, but I don't think it can accomodate on board devicenet, and I'm not sure I have the panel space for external comm cards.

Using the multi-drive mode would add some complexity initially setting it up, but would save over $750 per group of four...I may go that route...

The boss wants to stick with A/B, but if I can show them a 50% savings by switching, they may open up. We have some Yaskawas in another area, and they're pretty solid in my opinion...

Thanks for the feedback so far...
More is welcome...
Paul

jrexrode · Nov 30, 2010

My vote would go for the Control Techniques SK drive.
It has an incredibly small foot print, much smaller than the ABB ACS 550, and has a cost of about $350 - $400. A devicenet module, which resides inside the drive cover will run about another $200 I think. I use both the ABB and the Control Techniques drives with DeviceNet on a regualar basis and both are a breeze to use. While I'm an ABB fan, I've got to give the Control Techniques drives props on how creative you can get with the configuration. Plus, they have free configuration software thats pretty darn intuitive.

Honga · Nov 30, 2010

Multi-Drive mode allows up to 4 additional PowerFlex 4 or 40 drives to be connected to the PowerFlex 40 on DeviceNet (total of 5 PowerFlex 4/40 drives on one DeviceNet node)

From the website.

As mentioned above you could get the "Black box" to do the conversion. Or if it works out cheaper you could go PF40x1 -> PF4x3

Adam303 · Nov 30, 2010

As mentioned above you could get the "Black box"

22-xcomm-dc-base
http://www.ab.com/drives/22-comm/22-xcomm-dc-base/
All though I would highly recomend Beguinn (post #4) advice if you are going to use AB

bkottaras · Dec 1, 2010

Paul,

I have had great luck with these.
You can get a Device Net option card as well as Profi, etc.
My price for the 1 HP unit vector is around $175.00, no Device Net though.
Since you'll be buying a boat load I think the price may be even less, you've got to talk to your rep.
So far I haven't had a single failure.
Here's the link:
http://www.lenze-actech.com/cgi-bin/site.pl?smv~f

bkottaras · Dec 1, 2010

Blue beauties!!

OkiePC · Dec 1, 2010

Yes, I will convince them to change brands to save money rather than get into a multi-drive system...we really don't need another layer of communication for our alleged mechanics to attempt troubleshooting.

We also must be able to replace a single failed drive without shutting down the whole department if one dies, so another thumbs down for multi-drive mode. We have enough spare labor to manhandle boxes and manually palletize when we lose one conveyor, but more than that, and it's downtime ticking...

$175 for 1HP is amazing...the kind of price that over rules brand loyalty...nice looking panel too...

EDIT: The only real loss by switching away from A/B is the ability to use Drive Executive to drill right into the drive via RSLinx bridging through the scanner. Besides, the 160 series wasn't supported by Drive Executive, so we have to use RSNetworx for Devicenet to drill into drive paramters with those remotely anyway. But we have an Enet to Dnet bridge on the network, so perhaps it's possible for one of the other brand drives' config software to reach it that way?

Paul

bkottaras · Dec 1, 2010

OkiePC said:
Yes, I will convince them to change brands to save money rather than get into a multi-drive system...we really don't need another layer of communication for our alleged mechanics to attempt troubleshooting.

We also must be able to replace a single failed drive without shutting down the whole department if one dies, so another thumbs down for multi-drive mode. We have enough spare labor to manhandle boxes and manually palletize when we lose one conveyor, but more than that, and it's downtime ticking...

$175 for 1HP is amazing...the kind of price that over rules brand loyalty...nice looking panel too...

EDIT: The only real loss by switching away from A/B is the ability to use Drive Executive to drill right into the drive via RSLinx bridging through the scanner. Besides, the 160 series wasn't supported by Drive Executive, so we have to use RSNetworx for Devicenet to drill into drive paramters with those remotely anyway. But we have an Enet to Dnet bridge on the network, so perhaps it's possible for one of the other brand drives' config software to reach it that way?

Paul

Paul,

if you have had enough of Device Net, they offer an Ethernet/IP adapter as well.

OkiePC · Dec 1, 2010

bkottaras said:
Paul,
If you have had enough of Device Net, they offer an Ethernet/IP adapter as well.

Maybe in a few more years...the scanners are SLC, and relatively trouble free doing RIO (to robots and Flex I/O) and D-NET to drives, which I like pretty well.

DickDV · Dec 2, 2010

Okie, if ABB is a choice, I would recommend the ACS355 rather than its bigger brother, the ACS550. The 355 is a nice compact drive with plenty of options and has a nice small footprint too. I would think you would have excellent support for them as well in your area. If not, you always have me! (blush)(grin)(grimace)

A/B 160 Series Drive Replacement (D-NET)

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