Who makes the most reliable VFD?

[garbo]

The 3 millon square foot campus where I work has over 200 VFD'S from 5 to 250 HP. We are very pleased with the current company that covers over 90% of these drives but they just saved $30,000 buying drives from another vendor on a 2 year remodeling project . From what I have observed they are not up to par on what we have now. I am all for saving my employer money but will not compromise quality. None of the new companies VFD'S are on line yet. All of the VFD'S have a line reactor and a bypass contactor. We have started to upsize to the next motor HP. When we relplace a 40 HP motor VFD we specify a 50 HP VFD. I do not want to specify the brands but will leave my e mail if you want to companies that we use. Thanks tom grabowski email garbo41@yahoo.com

 

[Cow]

Where's Jraef at??

 

[chris kennedy]

but they just saved $30,000 buying drives from another vendor on a 2 year remodeling project . From what I have observed they are not up to par on what we have now.

Heck, I like them all. Never had a warranty call on any of them.

I do not want to specify the brands

Well now that won't make for a very interesting thread will it.

 

[petersonra]

The 3 millon square foot campus where I work has over 200 VFD'S from 5 to 250 HP. We are very pleased with the current company that covers over 90% of these drives but they just saved $30,000 buying drives from another vendor on a 2 year remodeling project . From what I have observed they are not up to par on what we have now.
just what is different about the quality? there are only a few companies making the power semiconductors so really the main differences between drives these days is the control section and the cosmetics.
I am all for saving my employer money but will not compromise quality. None of the new companies VFD'S are on line yet. All of the VFD'S have a line reactor and a bypass contactor. We have started to upsize to the next motor HP. When we relplace a 40 HP motor VFD we specify a 50 HP VFD.
Why would you do this? It just makes the thing more expensive and for no real purpose. Keep in mind the whole reason to use a VFD involves putting less energy into the motor so you probably are only putting for instance 30HP into a 40HP motor anyway, so what is the big benefit to upsizing the VFD? Save your employer some money by sizing the VFD to the motor, and not arbitrarily upsizing it for no good reason.I do not want to specify the brands but will leave my e mail if you want to companies that we use. Thanks tom grabowski email garbo41@yahoo.com

It is going to be hard for anyone to make any intelligent comments on your post without knowing what it is you are actually talking about.

$30k is not chump change, but does the saving consider the training time involved for the people maintaining the stuff and spare parts that will now have to be added because they went to a different brand?

I am really curious how you saved $30,000 on VFDs. VFDs tend to be about the same cost between manufacturers, usually no more than 10% difference between brands for equivalent units. That would indicate $300,000 worth of VFDs. that is a huge order for VFDs.

 

[shamsdebout]

I am curious why no manufacturers name were listed. I didn't think that was against the policy.

ABB, GE, and Eaton have a good line of VFD's. Thanks to competition you won't go wrong picking up VFD's from the bigger manufacturers.

 

[Besoeker]

The 3 millon square foot campus where I work has over 200 VFD'S from 5 to 250 HP. We are very pleased with the current company that covers over 90% of these drives but they just saved $30,000 buying drives from another vendor on a 2 year remodeling project . From what I have observed they are not up to par on what we have now. I am all for saving my employer money but will not compromise quality. None of the new companies VFD'S are on line yet. All of the VFD'S have a line reactor and a bypass contactor. We have started to upsize to the next motor HP. When we relplace a 40 HP motor VFD we specify a 50 HP VFD. I do not want to specify the brands but will leave my e mail if you want to companies that we use. Thanks tom grabowski email garbo41@yahoo.com

Much of the work we do is variable speed drive projects. Sometimes the drive modules are specified by the customers but, where we have a choice, we generally use Vacon. We have shipped hundreds of systems with them in over the past few years.One project alone had 94 of them in various ratings from 15kW to 220kW. I know of no reported problems. I suppose I could say the same about Siemens and ABB. Of the few projects we did with Mitsubishi drives, I can remember a couple that left scars and didn't do our reputation a lot of good. A bit of a shame considering that it was our customer who insisted on their use.

Anyway, here's a panel we did with an active front end Vacon inverter:

We shipped another seven last month plus a few smaller units with Siemens VSDs. We found the Siemens units less intuitive for programming but this is probably a familiarity issue.

 

[shamsdebout]

Much of the work we do is variable speed drive projects. Sometimes the drive modules are specified by the customers but, where we have a choice, we generally use Vacon. We have shipped hundreds of systems with them in over the past few years.One project alone had 94 of them in various ratings from 15kW to 220kW. I know of no reported problems. I suppose I could say the same about Siemens and ABB. Of the few projects we did with Mitsubishi drives, I can remember a couple that left scars and didn't do our reputation a lot of good. A bit of a shame considering that it was our customer who insisted on their use.

Anyway, here's a panel we did with an active front end Vacon inverter:

We shipped another seven last month plus a few smaller units with Siemens VSDs. We found the Siemens units less intuitive for programming but this is probably a familiarity issue.

I am not familiar with this product line. Always good to know of another reputable brand. I have heard negative reviews about Mitsubishi drives.