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ACRA Mill VFD Problems

Beal095

Plastic
Joined
Mar 31, 2012
Location
Kansas City
I'm new here and glad there's a forum for fulltimers and weekenders!

Now my issue......

I bought an ACRA vertical mill (with DRO and power feed) from the company I work for. It’s been working good for years. I bought it a year ago and we have been using it for at least 6 months off of a static phase converter (although it seems the rpm indicated isn’t actual output with the converter). The unit has a Saftronics VFD on it. Every once in a while it would flash an error code on the drive. Now it flashes a broken code with parts of numbers and letters. Would my static converter have burned up the drive? Also, I’ve been told by several people that I can use a new VFD to bring in single phase and it will convert to three phase….. Is that right? I love the mill but it’s unusable in its current state. I hoping that I wouldn’t have to call a company to come work on it.


Thanks,

Shannon
 
If you have the manual for the drive, those "parts of numbers" are code abbreviations using the best they can get out of 7 segment displays. If you don't have the manual, you can probably download one but you will need to know the exact part number of the drive. Saftronics doesn't make drives, they brand label them from other people. Recently they were bought by Emerson so they sell Emerson drives now, but they used to brand label Fuji / GE drives and before that, Yaskawa drives. So unless you know the exact model number, you can't know which manual to get.

By the way, it's unlikely that just having the RPC would have damaged the VFD. But if it has a 7 segment LED display, that indicates it might be an older one and that may be an issue. Old drives can have bad capacitors and if that's the case, they are usually not worth repairing.

Most VFDs can convert 1 phase to 3 phase, some need to be de-rated to do so, some do not, and it depends on the HP size and voltage involved.
 
Thanks for the response. My phase converter is a static type and not a rotary type. I have the book on the drive and have seen the codes in the book like: EF3, LFJ7 etc. The codes that are being shown are like | _ - _|_ and are only parts of numbers or letters and not in the book.

Here's a link I found of a guy changing one out:

5 Bears - VFD - The Stock V. Mill

He's using a Hitachi L100 VFD. Any recommendations for a VFD that will convert 1 ph to 3 ph like the one shown below?

Here's one that converts 1 ph to 3 ph:
3 Hp Phase Converter.. Variable Frequency AC Drive..VFD | eBay


Thanks,

Shannon
 








 
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