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Replacement VFD Spindle Drive for Three J425

UARCHAEA

Plastic
Joined
May 1, 2014
Location
DUBLIN OHIO
Just found out the Yaskawa/Safronics spindle drive in my Three J425 is toast. Has anyone replaced any of the old Yaskawa’s with a new Mitsubishi, Hitachi or any other brand? Machine build 1993 with a Delta 20 Dynapath/Autocon control.

Old drive is Yaskawa 616G3, with 10HP rating. The Motor is also Yaskawa but 7.5HP or 5.5/3.9KW. Do I need a 10HP drive or will a 7.5HP drive do? Looking at the schematics, it does not appear that the motor has an encoder feedback.

I’m electronically challenged, however I have a good friend that works pretty well with drives, PLC’s and such.
 
Yaskawa 616G3 Retrofit

Just found out the Yaskawa/Safronics spindle drive in my Three J425 is toast. Has anyone replaced any of the old Yaskawa’s with a new Mitsubishi, Hitachi or any other brand? Machine build 1993 with a Delta 20 Dynapath/Autocon control.

Old drive is Yaskawa 616G3, with 10HP rating. The Motor is also Yaskawa but 7.5HP or 5.5/3.9KW. Do I need a 10HP drive or will a 7.5HP drive do? Looking at the schematics, it does not appear that the motor has an encoder feedback.

I’m electronically challenged, however I have a good friend that works pretty well with drives, PLC’s and such.


4/29/15

Good Morning,

I was the senior level 2 technical engineer with Yaskawa for 18 years and am intimately familiar with the 616G3 series. Being a pure
Volts per Hertz drive, without encoder feedback, it should be relatively straight-forward to retrofit to the Yaskawa V1000 micro drive. What was the failure of the G3? Typically the power board fails due to electrolytic capacitor leakage and the keypad goes dead. If that is the case, there should be a nameplate on the Yaskawa spindle motor, such as UAASKA-06CA1, to determine the appropriate programming to set the V/f ratios, as the motor is likely a 50 Hertz base with somewhere around a 266.7 Hertz max frequency. Unless programmed correctly, the motor will saturate and stall with high current draw. I would also need to know control terminal wiring landed to 1-8 & 11, in addition to 12-17, 21, 22, 25-27.

If I can be of further assistance, feel free to contact me.

Victor Hofmann
Automated Drive Systems
Omaha, NE 68137
 
Just found out the Yaskawa/Safronics spindle drive in my Three J425 is toast. Has anyone replaced any of the old Yaskawa’s with a new Mitsubishi, Hitachi or any other brand? Machine build 1993 with a Delta 20 Dynapath/Autocon control.

Old drive is Yaskawa 616G3, with 10HP rating. The Motor is also Yaskawa but 7.5HP or 5.5/3.9KW. Do I need a 10HP drive or will a 7.5HP drive do? Looking at the schematics, it does not appear that the motor has an encoder feedback.

I’m electronically challenged, however I have a good friend that works pretty well with drives, PLC’s and such.
From a capabilities standpoint, there is nothing that the old Yaskawa G3 drive could do that even the most basic new VFD can do. As to the sizing, if you know that the old drive worked, the safe bet would be to match it. But in reality, a 7.5HP drive, properly sized as a "Constant Torque" drive (not a Variable Torque drive for pumps and fans) should be fine.
 
Hello Victor,

Thanks for the tips, it will come in handy during instalation. Still trying to decide between Hitachi and Mitsubishi VFD's. My motor is 7.5hp but current drive is 10hp. I get to save quite a bit if I go with 7.5 over 10hp. But I will do the 10HP if needed. Which brand is the best?

Possible Choices
WJ200-055LF Hitachi 7.5HP
SJ700D-055LFUF3 Hitachi 7.5HP
CT1-100 Hitachi 10HP
WJ200-075LF Hitachi 10HP
FR-D720-238-NA Mitsubishi 7.5HP
FR-D720-318-NA Mitsubishi 10HP



Old Drive Info.
YASKAWA 616G3 VFD DRIVE
CIMR-G3U27P5
AC INPUT AC OUTPUT
VOLTS 200-220 HZ:50 VOLTS: 0-230 MAX. HZ: 0-400
VOLTS 200-230 HZ:60 PHASE: 3 AMP:36.0
PHASE AMP:40.0 HP:10 KVA:13.7
FILE NO: E131457


YASKAWA MOTOR Info
UAASKA-06CA1
TYPE UAASKA-06CA1 DATE: 1993.2
PHASE 3 4 POLES INS: F
RULE JIS C 4004 JP44 CAOFA4S VOLTS MAX 200V
KW 5.5/3.7 30MIN/CONT 3500/8000 AMP 39/29
 
I have replaced several drives on J425/J325 cncs. Pay attention to the nameplate frequency and voltage ratings (they are not always easy to decipher)

Here is one version of the nameplate I have encountered on these machines . . . (Michael Moore's Tree from PM)

Yaskawamotor.jpg


Note that your spindle motor Full Load Current is 39Amps - much higher current rating than typical for a motor of this power rating because the voltage rating is only 200V. Your original drive had a continuous rating of 36Amps so you should seek to replace it with something closer to this current rating if possible.

One thing you do not mention is whether or not your spindle has an encoder - all of the units I have dealt with had encoders. I ended up using a UniDrive SP in closed loop Vector mode operating the drive in velocity mode. It worked very well and easily ran the motor to over 8000 rpm with snappy accel / decel performance.

The SP2203 Drive is rated at 25Amps Continuous (Heavy Duty Operation) with a 43.7A peak capability for 1 full minute. This provided adequate spindle motor power at all speeds of operation on the last machine I did. You need to step up to an SP3201 if you want the ability to take advantage of the full thermal capacity of your Yaskawa Spindle motor . . . again since your motor is rated at 200V, a 7.5HP drive just isn't going to be able to deliver the current required to hit the nameplate power ratings of the original drive.

I do remember having to futz around with the motor slip speed and voltage parameters to get it to run well - it wasn't altogether straight forward.

Once commissioned, in every case operators indicated much improved low speed performance which I attributed to operating in closed loop vector mode.
 
Last edited:
Hi All,

Finally got by buddy to come down help swap out my dead Yaskawa 616G3 VFD for a Hitachi WJ200-075LF. I settled on the 10HP Hitachi from Drives warehouse based on information gleaned from this and other forums. I also got direct feedback from several members. Thank you all.

My buddy is an automation and control expert, as such, the wiring and installation went well. Fired up machine and got the dreaded "Spindle not up to speed" alarm.

I'm convinced at this point that problem might be my parameter set-up.

First, has anyone used the WJ200 as a replacement for the Yaskawa drive? If so, what were your parameters? (Machine is J425 with Delta 20 control).

Second, what is the Base and Max frequency for the Yaskawa spidle motor used on this machine (UAASKA-06CA1)? I could not get any meaningful data out of Yaskawa on this motor. This thing is an odd duck.

Once I get this project working properly I will document and post with wiring and pictures. Many of the older Tree machines will need a new VFD, for most of us a repairing the old VFD at an average cost of $2,000 may not be a good idea. Especially if you can pick up a brand new VFD in the $500 to $600 range. Any help or suggestions will be greatly appreciated.



Hitchi Wj200-075LF VFD Set-Up

Parameter Currently State
A003 - Base Frequency 120 Hz (Runs very sluggishly at 60Hz)
A004 - Max Frequency 400 Hz (Probably needs to be 267Hz).
H003 - Motor Capacity 7.5 Kw (will be changed to 5.5Kw).
F002 - Acceleration 10 second (Will be changed to 5 seconds).
F003 - Deceleration 10 second
A082 - Avg motor volt ? ? Not sure
b012 - motor current ? ? Not sure
b008 - Restart 0.0 No Just to be safe. No restart.
 
Does the motor have a nameplate?

If he went with factory defaults at the drive for a 60Hz 240V motor - it will not run well and continued efforts to run with those settings will burn the motor up.
 
I know this has been a few years back, I have the same problem with my
Tree J-425 the spindle won't start and I can't change tools as of 9-25-19.
If possible I would like more info. on what all you did to change to the
Hitachi WJ200-075LF 10HP.
my email [email protected]
Thanks!
 
I have the same Yaskawa UAASKA-06CA1 spindle motor in a Tree Journeyman 425. I need to replace the drive with one that I can power from a single phase input. Those of you in the know, do you have a recommendation?
 








 
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