Motor control engineer here, i’d recommend keeping overload relays with you when patching in a temporary full voltage non reversing starter until the new VFD comes in. This way you at least have overcurrent protection for the motor. I’m sure carrier was relying on the ABB drive to perform this function, so without an overload relay that contactor is going to let the blower motor die a fiery death if something was to go wrong. Enjoyed the video!
That's not OCD man That's professionalism. And don't let anybody else tell you otherwise. That little bit of attention to detail separates you from the rest.
Great video. I've had to bypass a few of these. You are not alone..lol. what I've done isright under the transformer theres a little square line voltage terminal block where the blower motor wires lead back to. If you pull that out, a contactor fits perfect. All the wires are on that block to connect to the contactor. Line and load.. And conveniently right next to the transformer theres a grey wire with a female connector on it. Its G from the board. . You can put that right to the coil of the contactor, Then grab common off the compressor contactor right next to it. It was designed that way I believe. for permanent bypass. Great job man
Here in New Jersey I work for a company that was installing units for a pharmaceutical chain. They were York rooftop units with Mitsubishi drives. We were having a high failure rate in areas that had a lot of brown outs. After doing a lot of research I found a company that was Manufacturing inline electric filters. Similar to what's on a mini split. After installing the inline electric filters and the new drives the problem was resolved.
Sir, you are an HVAC scholar and fantastic teacher.. I'm a mechanic at age 33 and still debating getting into this field even though I might be getting too old. Keep up the good work!
Good work, sir. I agreed that I notice about dirty power too since I’ve been repaired on commercial kitchen equipments most of them are using 208v and most of their microprocessors will gone bad as soon as summer hit. Great video as always sir.
I inherited a roof full of these units recently and did find one bad VFD a couple of weeks ago. Today, there are two more and I have done the instant VFD bypass as you mentioned. I’ll likely do the contactor installation soon but for now they are running. Interesting that 2 of the 3 fans rotation needed reversal after VFD bypass. Thanks for the video and abundant information!
I had a bad VFD on the same type of unit your working on. I had to install a Contactor and a additional relay for the Heating mode. Worked like a charm.
I worked maintenance at hospital . We had several vsd on several air handlers, chillers. Great for saving belts and pulleys. The bad if bad would almost always loose a drive . Earlier programming factory techs could . Then they plain just blow up sometimes .hopefully there more dependable now . Then even then they were in the thousands. Great video.
Had the same issue on a recent new install. As you said, VFD back ordered two weeks. Unit continued to operate, freezing coil and filters. Service call was for water dripping into restaurant. Ultimately the issue was VFD failure. When ice began to melt during off- cycle, water dripped down vent. The new VFD supplied, had a smaller footprint. Warranty replacement.
We have installed a lot of these carriers with the VFD’s in San Diego and we haven’t had any ABB failures on them that I am aware of, but most of them are 460v. Maybe that makes a difference. It always helps me to have an extra ABB display on my truck to help with setting the drive at startup. Most of the time we have to limit them below 60 HZ to get a proper air balance. Sometimes they even use them in Labs where we have to reprogram them to run 24/7 at a constant speed when they need make up air for fume hoods.
When you said you didn’t know what to do for blower during heating I told myself. Just change the thermostat setting for tstat controls fan during heat and sure enough you said that. Love the videos🤙🏼
Great job! I agree with you about replacing the drives. If it's going to be an issue with failing drives and getting replacement parts I would keep the contactors in there
ABB drives are very reliable. They tolerate a great deal of dirty power. But they do not like water. And they need air circulation for cooling. I have worked extensively with ABB drives in the industrial automation business. They were my first recommendation for replacement even over Allen Bradley. So this failure, in my opinion, is the placement of the drive in the cabinet.
From my experience we got rid of abb drives they fail quite often with the igbt module we use danfoss in most of our machines at least in my plant very expensive but reliable
I'm glad i see them almost everywhere because i hardly ever worked with other drives. Although I'm very interested in them i never really had the chance to grasp more than just a few basics
You’re not the only one who likes to trim wires to equal length. As for tightening terminals, I get them good and tight, then break them loose and re-tighten to ensure I’m snugging against pre-crushed wire and terminal washers.
As an old "fridgy" it seems to me that a lot if this "new" technology is there for "technology" sake. Clean up the power supply (energy company) and a lot if these issues should disappear. Love all the new design diagnostic tools and the new gauges, vac pumps etc. Love the content, keep up the good fight!.
If those are anything like York, the output of the board that goes to the fan contactor on fixed speed units will go to a relay on the VFD unit. The relay will then close a contact on the drive allowing it to run. If there's something similar on those units you may be able to use that to power your contactor and essentially have a "stock" unit.
We have been having the exact same issue with these carrier vfds down here in Florida again super dirty power down here too we have bypassed sooo many of them but down here we have the ioflex board that controls everything for EMS crap lol gotta love when they over engineer crap and it ends up wasting the power that they were hoping to safe lol the fraction of the power they save with a vfd is eaten up on the first service call lol great job Chris
i personally would like to hear you "geeking out" more on low power issues, today is first time I heard of a VFD but thats why I am here, & thats to learn as much as I can. as for voltage, a friend rented a shop some years ago, had 96 volts on 120 circuit, & around 180 on 240, but his was due to a breaker box mounted to wall with huge amount of corrosion & owner refused to fix. but I couldnt mig weld there, my welder refused to work, but it did blow diodes trying to work, but I was able to use a transformer Lincoln stick welder without issue. but I would like hearing more on dirty power
California and the awesome laws we have to follow . I am a battery guy , we have prop 65 warnings on everything ! Dam near even the urinals !! Cali requires us to make chargers that are 24 , 36 , 48 , 72 and 80 volts ranging 200 to 2000 amp hour rating , pull less that 10 watts when in standby mode !! Plenty of other rules to follow. But yeah ........ Most of our vfd drives take the hit when it is dirty power , and the units have line input filter installed already. I agree that we will have more issues with how sensitive units are becoming.
If you or any company in the commercial (maybe residential eventually) HVACR space wants to add a service that will help your customers that would be measure the shaft voltage on any equipment hooked to a VFD. Once the shaft voltage gets too high it will start destroying the bearings and the customer will start to report intermittent cooling failures and that will be the bearings going bad. Aegis and Fluke both sell the shaft voltage testing kit. Just sell them a clamp on shaft brush that can be easily replaced.
I have the same issues with those VFDs and we have been bypassing them. The problem with bypassing them is that you will burn the blower motors if you lose one of the power legs. The motors are not (internally) thermally protected. I had to replace 3 motors at the same location where the drives were bypassed. To be fair, these were all ICP units but I believe they are all the same technology. FYI, on the 8000 thermostat you can find the access code in the dealer info, you don"t have to remove the stat from the base plate.
Sew Eurodrive probably makes the absolute best VFD's on the market. We have a MTC battery changing machine that uses 3 of them in a non-cooled, enclosed NEMA control panel cabinet where this machine operates in a warehouse that is not conditioned at all and it easily gets up to 120 degrees inside on very hot days and this machine has been going strong for 5 years now without any issues with the VFD's.
Those VFD’s are very good that’s the only brand we use at my current job. Instead of ordering through carrier you should be able to order directly through ABB
I wanna see more mitsubishi A/C units! And I agree, when you go from tough automotive to cheaper CMOS tech, the voltages are more sensitive because they're not designed to handle wide changes in power delivery.
ABB Makes solid drives. Im a VFD service tech and all i do is install drives and service them 24/7. First thing is the Vfds do not have a long life inside of a blower section do to moisture buildup, that particular drive is nema 1 and is not rated for a high moisture environment , second thing is that if you have dirty power in that area, install a 3-5% line impedance reactor on the input of the VFD.
I had same issue on one a couple months ago. I managed to get the drive. Had to spend some time with tech support to program it. They do not come with the program but they do come with the front lcd panel so you can do it.
I can tell you from experience on working with lots of VFD systems the thing that usually kills them is heat. Most VFDs are only rated to 40 deg C ambient (104 deg F). For systems that drive high HP motors, it is common to see VFDs in their own electrical enclosure with a separate small air conditioner on the side of the box to keep the temperature of the enclosure below 100 deg F. When this small air conditioner fails is when you often start seeing the drives fail soon after. If you want to find out how hot it is getting around where the VFD is, you can buy these stickers that change color when a certain temperature is reached.
We generally use these (ICM Controls ICM450 3-Phase Monitor) on many compressors and AHU's. Might be worth looking into to save your customers some money.
Just did this on a Carrier 10 ton unit. this is the second time I've had the VFD go out. Was told 3-5 months before we can get another. Did about the same as you did, tho we did install a 3 phase disconnect that uses normal fuses as its a pain to find the fuses they use.
Here is a thought - order up a system with NO ELECTRICAL CONTROLS on it - then draw up what you want and have a UL 508 panel shop build you what works - then just hook up to your fans compressor and pressure switches - dont mount the control panel on the unit and it will last forever. When I was in the business I figured about 80% of my calls were of an electrical nature. You dont have to be an engineer to design something that works better. I have been designing electrical controls for 25 years and had a UL 508 panel shop to build them.. your a smart guy with experience that you could build a better mouse trap with. Most guys who invent something that works well is someone with experience in the field who recognizes a better way... go for it.
I love the videos you produce. I design and program control systems for wash down food environments. If you look at the manual they recommend max running temperature is around 110 degrees F and AC units run way hotter than that of the roof. There also could be a problem with the water as well. If you look at the ABB 255 serials it is a full nema 4x enclosure for extreme applications. Or yaskawa has good 4x drives as well and a little bit cheaper. If anyone has questions on vfds or any other controls related things let me know :)
Bro Chris Don't pull heavy loads with your hand if it's hurt. I see some wrest holder in 4:30. Its been a month that I recover from an injury. Be careful Bro.
@@davidperry4013 It's most likely their fault for choosing the wrong VFD product and/or locating it in a bad spot. ABB VFDs are one of the best built VFDs I have seen.
@@davidperry4013 Or just use water-tight NEMA rated enclosure for all the electronics. Amazes me how industrial controls are exposed to the elements like this just to save precious pennies to fill the landfill with failed units.
Yep garbage ABB. I have called their tech support approximately 6 times in last 5 years and the prima donna tech support always were worthless. Never had trouble with Danfoss & A & B.
The unit can control the fan operation in heating mode via the IFO wire at the end of the white connector on the ignition control board. Connect IFO to the contactor. The G feeds into the connector as well, and you will have a conventional unit drive for heating and cooling.
@@HVACRVIDEOS I'm not sure of the real Carrier acronym, but to me it means, "internal fan operator." I had a helper forget to properly place that wire on a replacement ecm control fan board in an old Bryant RTU, and without it, the unit failed to bring on the fan with a call for heat. That was the last time I let a new kid tell me he did a job right and not follow up.
During my Commercial HVAC class we had a icemaker that was having issues with the control board, (no they didn't tell us what is wrong with it, that was our job, to troubleshoot shoot), we found out , at least I did, it was a control board issue, looked up the price and the board is 765 bucks, I never could wrap my head around just how expensive some of them parts are being new to this, so I told the instructor, how you can just repair most boards just simply by locating the damaged part on the board and replace it, he said good thought, now prove it. I located the failed relay, ordered it by googling the product number that is usually on the component that is on the PCB(control board), order it for 15 bucks, replaced it, put the board back in and boom, it worked, I do understand you may not have time to take the vfd apart, look for damage on the board inside, unsold, replace component, solder it back, but that could be a option. I bet anything, that is it's the small capacitor on the PCB that is hanging down in front of the vents that you clearly see in the video, there be a X ontop of that small capacitor which if split open/puffed up, it would be bad, if you have a solder tool, NOT MAPP gas kind either that some would think but electronic devices type, you can replace it. Just a thought and what I personally experience with.
There is absolutely nothing wrong in having pride in your workmanship. I too, like the wires the same length before fitting a connector. It shows that you care. I’ve seen VFD’s sold as a particular make opened up to find an inferior (and smaller capacity) unit packaged to resemble an OEM unit. From China. Draw your own conclusions.
We installed a large carrier with VFD drive just last summer and the drive went bad at the beginning of this summer! Didn’t even make it one year. I say get rid of them.
Love the Squeel as the fan motor started.. Guess as you said.. belt was loose. Life people said below.. stuff on fan of VFD looked like smoke from it burning out. I would say they put it in the fan area so the air helps cool it? I would assume the blower area is more conditioned then outside air.
I agree with the consensus here. Your issue is with the moisture more so than the voltage. If the moisture is bad enough I'd expect it to kill even simple components like a contactor (which you wisely put in the control section). As far a voltage issues are concerned, a VFD is far more likely to handle an undervoltage than an induction motor due to the compensation that is made in the electronics. In fact, if that VFD is designed to run on Japan's 200 volt three phase, the tolerance would likely allow as low as 180.
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Chris, I'm am sure you your problem is the moisture/water droplets inside the VFD on circuit board is shorting out something. Most of the VFD's have protection inside, there may be a reset or fuses. In my years of experience with VFD's, they are very reliable. I would relocate the drive out of the blower compartment. Also, most VFD'a have AC power conditioners/ they will cleanup most dirty input supply power. You may want to look into an additional power line filtering, but I don't think that's necessary in this situation. they are a bit pricey. But I believe your problem is the VFD needs to be reloacted. Good luck And keep up the great work. Tony
Line reactors could help with dirty incoming power as well as reducing VFD harmonics. As stated in the video, moisture is not a VFD's friend. I believe VFD's will have a much better longevity when installed off of the equipment, on a wall of a mechanical room, away from high humidity levels, vibrations and dusty inverter cooling air. We have retrofitted many ABB drives over the years in this fashion and have yet to get a call-back . Of course, keeping the line and load wires apart (in different conduit or not bundled together) is another important aspect of installing VFD's. Twisted wires are preferable on the load side as well. The devil is in the details. I get why manufacturer's install their VFD's in such a fashion; trying to keep costs down by not redesigning a package unit casing yet providing adequate cooling for the VFD and meeting electrical and safety conformities. As a first time comment on one of your videos, well done! I have been watching you for a while now and love seeing how you handle things south of the border.
If you have a power problem with 3 phase were you read 460 across all three legs, but to ground 1 of the 3 legs shows 0v, then there's 2 screws on the side of the drive ( I forget what there makes as) but those need to be loosened
Chris, You may want to try a local VFD repair shop. I like the ABB and Yaskawa drives. Yaskawa has some of the best technical support I’ve experienced from an OEM. I’d consider relocating the drive, maybe to the return section, unless it serves a kitchen. I suspect your correct regarding the high humidity in the supply section causing failure. I understand you have relatively low humidity in your area so that should help even if the economizer is open. You also have high ambient temps but the economizer shouldn’t be open far enough for the MAT in the return to be an issue when the economizer is open.
I have installed a new Carrier with this ttpe of VFD with the same results of failing. Was on the roof for theee months and the ABB controler failed. Told the factory about this issue and it seems to be news to them when I reported it. Did the exact same thing you did Chris with the contactor.
Funny how carrier says you have to order the VFD from them due to programming, but there is no real programming. You just have now how to program the ABB VFD
One aftermarket solution you might look into is a liquid-cooled VFD. Or, look into remotely mounting the VFD inside the building, where humidity is less likely to be a problem.
VFD drives are notorious for failure in general, the newer ones more so than the older ones due to the cheapness of the components. VFD drives are high power, high current and high frequency switching devices and due to this, its highly sensitive to voltage and current fluctuations. 10 millisconds or more of overcurrent or overvoltage can destroy the final power transistor IGBT section which is likely whats happened. I can only assume, but maybe they put it in the blower cabinet for cooling reasons, air circulation. But I agree, it will accumulate moisture. And again, high voltage high current + water = kaboom. Highly doubt the circuit board is conformal coated either.
Putting the vfd in the blower section is a problem. As soon as the compressor stops the humidity of the air coming through there is going to rise, as the evap warms up and it's wet, above the dew point of the temperature that the vsd is at, due to it living in the cold air. The cooling fan in the vfd pulls humid air through it and water condenses on the live boards. I am amazed that they did that, put the vfd somewhere else, that will solve the problem. The vfd is not the problem, I am a vfd specialist and the location of the vfd in the blower section is not recommended. What you can do is retrofit them elsewhere in the cabinet and see how it goes over a period of a year. If there's still failures then one can look at other measures to protect them, which there are but lets change one thing at a time and evaluate the results. I like these technical challenges, thanks for the video. Regards, South Africa
Hey there... in Germany we use drives from SEW-Eurodrive - they Are a Little More expensive but i havent seen one fail... and they really take a beating at out Factory... metal flakes, Phase Shift, Phase loss, voltage drops and Heat to to 60degree celsius and they simply wont break
Chris, get them VFDs repaired bud! There’s no question you’ll have a regional repair shop for industrial customers. Just choose somewhere that gives you a repair warranty, does a load test and gives you a service report. I’d be surprised if the drive was being affected solely by low supply voltage, typically they’ll run until the DC link voltage is too low and then they’ll trip before reaching the field weakening point. Power quality could be a cause, especially overvoltage. Do the drives blow the supply fuses or just stop working? Are they all the same serial number range (could be a firmware issue!). I’d love to give you some support on this, I’ll drop you an email 😁😁
We used to repair those, and most of the stuff we had came with envirnomental damage, usually in form of metallic dust all over the inside, since they controlled lathes and mills. It's really stupid that they didn't put some sort of coating on the PCB to protect it.
@Liam We actually did this, they sell special PCB coatings ready in spray can, stinks like vomit but the board can be submerged under water and will continue working pretty much.
@@RolasPerronasYPesada I don't know specifically what it was. It was designed as PCB coating, it went in thin coats and you could still solder through it afterwards no problem. It smelled really horrible, I vividly remember the smell of vomit mixed with solvents. I'd say it had that epoxy smell to it but I have never smelled such a stink from any other paint product. It was completely clear like car clear coat and was when dry was hard. Made the PCBs really shine. 2-3 coats was the recommendation. As far as I know there are many products out there that would do the job. I'd imagine any that is designed to stop high voltage creeping across the board and even corona discharge will suffice.
You can probably get those VFDs or a pretty direct equivalent from some supplier like Grainger or Automation Direct off the shelf and not have to wait three months. I might be inclined to get one rated for a few more HP than the original if possible, since that looked like magic smoke to me on the top of the unit, not dust. I'd also explore mounting one outside the fan plenum to avoid the condensation, but the downside of that with So Cal roof mounting is possibly running the unit outside its high temp limit.
Carrier is infamous for its inability to stock parts for their units. It is especially bad on their "new" stuff. It is easier for them to make everything a factory order and charge more for shipping. Engineers have ZERO real word experience! Stupidity seems to be a prerequisite for employment.
Engineers don’t make the call on how much of a given part they stock in the warehouse. Also like Umberto said, engineers don’t always get the final call on things they are experts in. Another example to look up is the Challenger disaster.
@@mman454 Okay, maybe the engineers don't have final say. I know they have no input on mfr decisions for part stock. What I can say is that those making the final decision on the equipment that is coming out don't care if it is junk or not. Just cheap, so they can show a profit. Same with the part stock. The less on their shelves the better their bottom line is. Both of these show little concern for the end user!!
You mention their choice of location. Heat is a primary problem for vfd's so in the air path is better than with the other controls which are in a non ventilated area. As to energy savings looking at the nameplate for amps in and out can give you pause for thought.
It’s crazy it took 3 months to get the same VFD and i installed it last week and the blower didn’t turn on till second stage was calling and only keep it at 10%. I love vfd drives but hate those
You’re right! Not a good idea to install the VFD in the airstream, exposed to humidity. They do it to keep it cool though. Realistically the VFD should be rated for a humid & dusty environment, mostly likely in a NEMA4 enclosure, which is more expensive.
And you right about "dirty power", improper voltage certainly causes issues, especially for components that have PCBs, that is exactly why most computer heavy areas have a power backup, one summer in my area here in TX the city next door had this fertilizer plant, it blew up, the city where I am ended up having a "flash" what I call it, or as the proper term is called power surge, anyway, on that road turned highway to that city where the plant was, on the right side of that road (just so happened to be on the same side), all the A/Cs and I mean all of them ended up with some issues, and it just so happened to be the same issue, Cap and condenser fan motor the next hour/morning, driving down the highway you notice the power line following right to the plant, And all the businesses/homes, of around 750 being connected to the same line, all having issues. So from my personal experience, I would say it can very well be the power is the issue, I believe in coincidences, and it is that is a major coincidence.
Squirtle Hvac also VFDs in VRF and variable speed residential split systems are attached to a U shaped piece of suction line to keep the compressor VFD cool and are coated or inside a dedicated enclosure to protect it from dirt and moistures.
For those saying the drives are junk: No, they're not. ABB makes excellent drives. These failures are a product of the environment they're in, not the quality of the drive. It's not the drive's fault it was placed in a damp environment. It's a piece of electronic equipment with high(ish) voltages running through it. Water is bad, m'kay?
Nobody is saying the drives are crap, we are saying the units are crap. Take the best tasting ingredent in the world and stick it in a s$#! Sandwich and I bet it tastes like s$#!. This is no different.
Before you even said anything and was talking about VFD failure, I said moisture. Moisture will kill them quicker than anything else. They can take heat (within reason), they can take dirty power, they can even take being banged around to a certain extent. One thing they absolutely CANNOT tolerate is moisture. They convert AC to DC then back to AC anyway, so dirty power coming in isn't really that big a problem. Hell, you could lose a phase and they'd still function, provided the load isn't pulling a great deal of power out of them. The line side of these things are more or less just a rectifier unit, which then stores that DC power in a giant capacitor. Then it creates it's own waveform for the motors via IGBTs. They *DO NOT* like moisture and it will kill them. If you can keep them dry, you'll keep them happy. Too bad you couldn't install them in the stream of the cool air the unit itself is producing. That nice, cool, dry air will keep them going and happy as long as you please. I guess it doesn't really help in the winter, but the air tends to be more dry in the winter anyway. Tl;dr It's not the drive's fault, it's the placement and/or their working environment.
Hi Chris: Can you send the VFD to a electronic repair facility and get them back in a few days? I have a 150 hp drive fail in a water plant due to overheating and moisture, as well as several small ones in a pump station due to voltage issues. Finally put a constant voltage transformer in the line and no more failures. Also why not leave the contactors in the circuit and forget the VFD's. Maybe come up with a two stage contactor arrangement for hi and lo speeds. Great video. Many thanks.
Reason you can't do the two speed thing with contactors is that the VFD is changing the frequency of the power going to the three phase motor to control it's speed. 60hz = full speed, 30 hz = half speed. The voltage supplied in both cases is the same. Now if it was one of those condenser fan motors that run on single phase, you could change the speed by using a contactor to swap out a different size run capacitor, but you can't do that with a three phase motor that's being fed three phase power. EDIT: One other way you could do it is if the motor was different, some motors are wound in a way that permits you to use one set of windings for full speed and another set for half speed. Most ceiling fans are wound this way, but your typical blower motor is just a plain old three phase motor.
I’m guessing they decided to put the VFD in the air steam instead of the control enclosure to help with keeping it cool. It getting cool enough to cause moisture to condense is weird.
We had one today that went out but power cycle came back on. Then breaker started tripping immediately two days later first stage compressor failed. No short to ground but didn’t ohm out equally.
The other thing I’ve found out is that a lot of carrier units don’t come with a controller on the Danfoss VFDs and you have to order/buy one to control or fix the vfd.
The marks on that VF drive really do look like magic smoke. I'd imagine the power transistors within are all or mostly dead shorted (if not blown apart). Even when they are run within spec, they're right on the ragged edge of their capability. Push on them (bad power quality) and they'll fall right over, often spectacularly. I can't really think of anything that'd be fast acting enough to protect them. Maybe a larger model, with ample derating for more headroom? Not sure if the moisture would be a problem. A lot of times the circuit board and component legs will be coated with a sealing compound.
What these VFD's need to cope with the bad power factor is an industrial-grade surge protector, line filter, and an over-voltage cut-out contactor. What they need to deal with the moisture is a different version of the same VFD. ABB offers one that's identical except that the circuit board has a conformal coating on the PCB to keep moisture from causing problems with the electronics. Finally, a location change would do wonders for it, as I'm sure the air in that duct is just full of dust looking for a heatsink that it can clog the fins of.
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“One thing I will say is Carrier is smart enough, Um I should be careful of saying that” That was hilarious
Motor control engineer here, i’d recommend keeping overload relays with you when patching in a temporary full voltage non reversing starter until the new VFD comes in. This way you at least have overcurrent protection for the motor. I’m sure carrier was relying on the ABB drive to perform this function, so without an overload relay that contactor is going to let the blower motor die a fiery death if something was to go wrong. Enjoyed the video!
That's not OCD man That's professionalism. And don't let anybody else tell you otherwise. That little bit of attention to detail separates you from the rest.
Great video. I've had to bypass a few of these. You are not alone..lol. what I've done isright under the transformer theres a little square line voltage terminal block where the blower motor wires lead back to. If you pull that out, a contactor fits perfect. All the wires are on that block to connect to the contactor. Line and load.. And conveniently right next to the transformer theres a grey wire with a female connector on it. Its G from the board. . You can put that right to the coil of the contactor, Then grab common off the compressor contactor right next to it. It was designed that way I believe. for permanent bypass. Great job man
Here in New Jersey I work for a company that was installing units for a pharmaceutical chain. They were York rooftop units with Mitsubishi drives. We were having a high failure rate in areas that had a lot of brown outs. After doing a lot of research I found a company that was Manufacturing inline electric filters. Similar to what's on a mini split. After installing the inline electric filters and the new drives the problem was resolved.
Sir, you are an HVAC scholar and fantastic teacher.. I'm a mechanic at age 33 and still debating getting into this field even though I might be getting too old. Keep up the good work!
What did you do ? 3 years later ...
Good work, sir. I agreed that I notice about dirty power too since I’ve been repaired on commercial kitchen equipments most of them are using 208v and most of their microprocessors will gone bad as soon as summer hit.
Great video as always sir.
I inherited a roof full of these units recently and did find one bad VFD a couple of weeks ago. Today, there are two more and I have done the instant VFD bypass as you mentioned. I’ll likely do the contactor installation soon but for now they are running. Interesting that 2 of the 3 fans rotation needed reversal after VFD bypass. Thanks for the video and abundant information!
I had a bad VFD on the same type of unit your working on. I had to install a Contactor and a additional relay for the Heating mode. Worked like a charm.
How did you wire relay for heating ?
I worked maintenance at hospital . We had several vsd on several air handlers, chillers. Great for saving belts and pulleys. The bad if bad would almost always loose a drive . Earlier programming factory techs could . Then they plain just blow up sometimes .hopefully there more dependable now . Then even then they were in the thousands. Great video.
I ran into the same issue today first time. look it up after I’m home and here you are.
Not a "fan" of the blower running 24/7..hahah i get it!
Had the same issue on a recent new install. As you said, VFD back ordered two weeks. Unit continued to operate, freezing coil and filters. Service call was for water dripping into restaurant. Ultimately the issue was VFD failure. When ice began to melt during off- cycle, water dripped down vent. The new VFD supplied, had a smaller footprint. Warranty replacement.
Glad you chose to leave factory harnesses intact. Saves you tons of time when the VFD drives comes in. As usual, great video!
We have installed a lot of these carriers with the VFD’s in San Diego and we haven’t had any ABB failures on them that I am aware of, but most of them are 460v. Maybe that makes a difference. It always helps me to have an extra ABB display on my truck to help with setting the drive at startup. Most of the time we have to limit them below 60 HZ to get a proper air balance. Sometimes they even use them in Labs where we have to reprogram them to run 24/7 at a constant speed when they need make up air for fume hoods.
When you said you didn’t know what to do for blower during heating I told myself. Just change the thermostat setting for tstat controls fan during heat and sure enough you said that. Love the videos🤙🏼
Great job! I agree with you about replacing the drives. If it's going to be an issue with failing drives and getting replacement parts I would keep the contactors in there
ABB drives are very reliable. They tolerate a great deal of dirty power. But they do not like water. And they need air circulation for cooling. I have worked extensively with ABB drives in the industrial automation business. They were my first recommendation for replacement even over Allen Bradley. So this failure, in my opinion, is the placement of the drive in the cabinet.
From my experience we got rid of abb drives they fail quite often with the igbt module we use danfoss in most of our machines at least in my plant very expensive but reliable
I'm glad i see them almost everywhere because i hardly ever worked with other drives. Although I'm very interested in them i never really had the chance to grasp more than just a few basics
ABB and any other brands..they all the same crap.. I live in Houston and its the same problem
You’re not the only one who likes to trim wires to equal length. As for tightening terminals, I get them good and tight, then break them loose and re-tighten to ensure I’m snugging against pre-crushed wire and terminal washers.
I do the same I call it running the screw in. I also do the same for set screws on bearings and fan blades
As an old "fridgy" it seems to me that a lot if this "new" technology is there for "technology" sake. Clean up the power supply (energy company) and a lot if these issues should disappear. Love all the new design diagnostic tools and the new gauges, vac pumps etc. Love the content, keep up the good fight!.
Always enjoying your videos bud!. I live in NorCal and I’ve never had a bad VFD. Crazy. Thanks for the videos.
Now that you said that, be prepared for service calls today and tomorrow for bad VFDs.
Love to here someone else who has good OCD like me. Plus geek out all you want Chis, I for one enjoy it!!!
If those are anything like York, the output of the board that goes to the fan contactor on fixed speed units will go to a relay on the VFD unit. The relay will then close a contact on the drive allowing it to run. If there's something similar on those units you may be able to use that to power your contactor and essentially have a "stock" unit.
We have been having the exact same issue with these carrier vfds down here in Florida again super dirty power down here too we have bypassed sooo many of them but down here we have the ioflex board that controls everything for EMS crap lol gotta love when they over engineer crap and it ends up wasting the power that they were hoping to safe lol the fraction of the power they save with a vfd is eaten up on the first service call lol great job Chris
i personally would like to hear you "geeking out" more on low power issues, today is first time I heard of a VFD but thats why I am here, & thats to learn as much as I can.
as for voltage, a friend rented a shop some years ago, had 96 volts on 120 circuit, & around 180 on 240, but his was due to a breaker box mounted to wall with huge amount of corrosion & owner refused to fix. but I couldnt mig weld there, my welder refused to work, but it did blow diodes trying to work, but I was able to use a transformer Lincoln stick welder without issue. but I would like hearing more on dirty power
California and the awesome laws we have to follow .
I am a battery guy , we have prop 65 warnings on everything ! Dam near even the urinals !!
Cali requires us to make chargers that are 24 , 36 , 48 , 72 and 80 volts ranging 200 to 2000 amp hour rating , pull less that 10 watts when in standby mode !! Plenty of other rules to follow. But yeah ........
Most of our vfd drives take the hit when it is dirty power , and the units have line input filter installed already.
I agree that we will have more issues with how sensitive units are becoming.
If you or any company in the commercial (maybe residential eventually) HVACR space wants to add a service that will help your customers that would be measure the shaft voltage on any equipment hooked to a VFD. Once the shaft voltage gets too high it will start destroying the bearings and the customer will start to report intermittent cooling failures and that will be the bearings going bad. Aegis and Fluke both sell the shaft voltage testing kit. Just sell them a clamp on shaft brush that can be easily replaced.
I have the same issues with those VFDs and we have been bypassing them. The problem with bypassing them is that you will burn the blower motors if you lose one of the power legs. The motors are not (internally) thermally protected. I had to replace 3 motors at the same location where the drives were bypassed. To be fair, these were all ICP units but I believe they are all the same technology. FYI, on the 8000 thermostat you can find the access code in the dealer info, you don"t have to remove the stat from the base plate.
Sew Eurodrive probably makes the absolute best VFD's on the market. We have a MTC battery changing machine that uses 3 of them in a non-cooled, enclosed NEMA control panel cabinet where this machine operates in a warehouse that is not conditioned at all and it easily gets up to 120 degrees inside on very hot days and this machine has been going strong for 5 years now without any issues with the VFD's.
Those VFD’s are very good that’s the only brand we use at my current job. Instead of ordering through carrier you should be able to order directly through ABB
I wanna see more mitsubishi A/C units! And I agree, when you go from tough automotive to cheaper CMOS tech, the voltages are more sensitive because they're not designed to handle wide changes in power delivery.
Our vfd s are mounted in electrical section of our chillers. Cabinet is also temperature controlled with axial fan and a little heater.
I replaced an ABB drive in a five ton Carrier unit a month ago. All the rest of the units had the Danfoss drives, and they are all up and running.
Nice. We found a few carriers with VFD problems too. ABB. 🤷🏽♂️
Always like watching your videos keep up the good work
Thanks ks
Chris I had the same problen at a feed mill Tyson new unit 2 months old. But no heat cooled MCC room worked great did not have to change rotation
ABB Makes solid drives. Im a VFD service tech and all i do is install drives and service them 24/7. First thing is the Vfds do not have a long life inside of a blower section do to moisture buildup, that particular drive is nema 1 and is not rated for a high moisture environment , second thing is that if you have dirty power in that area, install a 3-5% line impedance reactor on the input of the VFD.
At 2:47 are ya sure that is just dirt? It kinda looks like magic smoke skid marks to me!
Thought the same. Looks like scorching.
Looks like the magic smoke came out also i.m.o
Yah something was definitely burning there.
when i saw it, i thought the same.
It looks like a popped capacitor released all its electrolytes.
I had same issue on one a couple months ago. I managed to get the drive. Had to spend some time with tech support to program it. They do not come with the program but they do come with the front lcd panel so you can do it.
Archaestra yes I know how to work with drives. I work with them often. But carrier does not keep the lcd on drives when they install them in the unit.
I would love to see a video were you and nor-cal Dave work together.. OCD working with laid back sufer dude.. But both of you have pride in your work
I can tell you from experience on working with lots of VFD systems the thing that usually kills them is heat. Most VFDs are only rated to 40 deg C ambient (104 deg F). For systems that drive high HP motors, it is common to see VFDs in their own electrical enclosure with a separate small air conditioner on the side of the box to keep the temperature of the enclosure below 100 deg F. When this small air conditioner fails is when you often start seeing the drives fail soon after. If you want to find out how hot it is getting around where the VFD is, you can buy these stickers that change color when a certain temperature is reached.
We generally use these (ICM Controls ICM450 3-Phase Monitor) on many compressors and AHU's. Might be worth looking into to save your customers some money.
Awsome chris,love ur clean and honest work and also ur videos,love from india.
Just did this on a Carrier 10 ton unit. this is the second time I've had the VFD go out. Was told 3-5 months before we can get another. Did about the same as you did, tho we did install a 3 phase disconnect that uses normal fuses as its a pain to find the fuses they use.
Here is a thought - order up a system with NO ELECTRICAL CONTROLS on it - then draw up what you want and have a UL 508 panel shop build you what works - then just hook up to your fans compressor and pressure switches - dont mount the control panel on the unit and it will last forever. When I was in the business I figured about 80% of my calls were of an electrical nature. You dont have to be an engineer to design something that works better. I have been designing electrical controls for 25 years and had a UL 508 panel shop to build them.. your a smart guy with experience that you could build a better mouse trap with. Most guys who invent something that works well is someone with experience in the field who recognizes a better way... go for it.
ABB usually has good equipment.
But there are a lot of factors.
Like you mentioned.
I love the videos you produce. I design and program control systems for wash down food environments. If you look at the manual they recommend max running temperature is around 110 degrees F and AC units run way hotter than that of the roof. There also could be a problem with the water as well. If you look at the ABB 255 serials it is a full nema 4x enclosure for extreme applications. Or yaskawa has good 4x drives as well and a little bit cheaper. If anyone has questions on vfds or any other controls related things let me know :)
Classic carrier , I needed a board last winter in a huge cold snap, couldnt get one for 2 months.
Good vid. I see the same thing here in the south. Every one I seen is a piece of it
Bro Chris Don't pull heavy loads with your hand if it's hurt. I see some wrest holder in 4:30.
Its been a month that I recover from an injury.
Be careful Bro.
if they are back ordered by over 200 units on something like this there is DEFINITLY something funny going on here
@@davidperry4013 It's most likely their fault for choosing the wrong VFD product and/or locating it in a bad spot. ABB VFDs are one of the best built VFDs I have seen.
Carrier engineers designed it wrong they should have the special order the VFDs that have epoxy potted PCBs
@@davidperry4013 Or just use water-tight NEMA rated enclosure for all the electronics. Amazes me how industrial controls are exposed to the elements like this just to save precious pennies to fill the landfill with failed units.
Yep garbage ABB. I have called their tech support approximately 6 times in last 5 years and the prima donna tech support always were worthless. Never had trouble with Danfoss & A & B.
The unit can control the fan operation in heating mode via the IFO wire at the end of the white connector on the ignition control board. Connect IFO to the contactor. The G feeds into the connector as well, and you will have a conventional unit drive for heating and cooling.
Great tip thanks bud!!
@@HVACRVIDEOS I'm not sure of the real Carrier acronym, but to me it means, "internal fan operator." I had a helper forget to properly place that wire on a replacement ecm control fan board in an old Bryant RTU, and without it, the unit failed to bring on the fan with a call for heat. That was the last time I let a new kid tell me he did a job right and not follow up.
During my Commercial HVAC class we had a icemaker that was having issues with the control board, (no they didn't tell us what is wrong with it, that was our job, to troubleshoot shoot), we found out , at least I did, it was a control board issue, looked up the price and the board is 765 bucks, I never could wrap my head around just how expensive some of them parts are being new to this, so I told the instructor, how you can just repair most boards just simply by locating the damaged part on the board and replace it, he said good thought, now prove it. I located the failed relay, ordered it by googling the product number that is usually on the component that is on the PCB(control board), order it for 15 bucks, replaced it, put the board back in and boom, it worked, I do understand you may not have time to take the vfd apart, look for damage on the board inside, unsold, replace component, solder it back, but that could be a option. I bet anything, that is it's the small capacitor on the PCB that is hanging down in front of the vents that you clearly see in the video, there be a X ontop of that small capacitor which if split open/puffed up, it would be bad, if you have a solder tool, NOT MAPP gas kind either that some would think but electronic devices type, you can replace it. Just a thought and what I personally experience with.
Needless to say, I gotten an A in that class. Lol
There is absolutely nothing wrong in having pride in your workmanship. I too, like the wires the same length before fitting a connector. It shows that you care. I’ve seen VFD’s sold as a particular make opened up to find an inferior (and smaller capacity) unit packaged to resemble an OEM unit. From China. Draw your own conclusions.
Good fix. Just ran into the same problem. Makes me a little angry on a two month old unit.
Ah i see there are the mentioned questions i asked in the stream before the last one ^^ (Usage of people count for airflow control) I Like it
We installed a large carrier with VFD drive just last summer and the drive went bad at the beginning of this summer! Didn’t even make it one year. I say get rid of them.
Fuck here we go again, the D in VFD stands for DRIVE!!!!! LOL
It'd be interesting to tear that vfd apart and find the root cause of failure. You are correct about microprocessor supply thresholds by the way :)
Love the Squeel as the fan motor started.. Guess as you said.. belt was loose. Life people said below.. stuff on fan of VFD looked like smoke from it burning out. I would say they put it in the fan area so the air helps cool it? I would assume the blower area is more conditioned then outside air.
Great job again like always
I agree with the consensus here. Your issue is with the moisture more so than the voltage. If the moisture is bad enough I'd expect it to kill even simple components like a contactor (which you wisely put in the control section). As far a voltage issues are concerned, a VFD is far more likely to handle an undervoltage than an induction motor due to the compensation that is made in the electronics. In fact, if that VFD is designed to run on Japan's 200 volt three phase, the tolerance would likely allow as low as 180.
Don’t trip I have the craziness too bruh. That’s why I enjoy watching
Thanks bud, I will be going live on RUclips this evening 9/9/19 @ 5:PM (west coast time) to discuss my most recent uploads, answer questions from RUclips comments, the Live chat, and from emails if you can come check it out here is the link >>>> ruclips.net/video/6YDWpK7UEiU/видео.html
Chris, I'm am sure you your problem is the moisture/water droplets inside the VFD on circuit board is shorting out something. Most of the VFD's have protection inside, there may be a reset or fuses. In my years of experience with VFD's, they are very reliable. I would relocate the drive out of the blower compartment. Also, most VFD'a have AC power conditioners/ they will cleanup most dirty input supply power. You may want to look into an additional power line filtering, but I don't think that's necessary in this situation. they are a bit pricey. But I believe your problem is the VFD needs to be reloacted. Good luck And keep up the great work. Tony
Thanks for your wonderful videos keep up great help 😁
Line reactors could help with dirty incoming power as well as reducing VFD harmonics.
As stated in the video, moisture is not a VFD's friend. I believe VFD's will have a much better longevity when installed off of the equipment, on a wall of a mechanical room, away from high humidity levels, vibrations and dusty inverter cooling air. We have retrofitted many ABB drives over the years in this fashion and have yet to get a call-back .
Of course, keeping the line and load wires apart (in different conduit or not bundled together) is another important aspect of installing VFD's. Twisted wires are preferable on the load side as well. The devil is in the details.
I get why manufacturer's install their VFD's in such a fashion; trying to keep costs down by not redesigning a package unit casing yet providing adequate cooling for the VFD and meeting electrical and safety conformities.
As a first time comment on one of your videos, well done! I have been watching you for a while now and love seeing how you handle things south of the border.
Thanks bud!
Line Reactors for sure!!
Nod to the line reactors!
If you have a power problem with 3 phase were you read 460 across all three legs, but to ground 1 of the 3 legs shows 0v, then there's 2 screws on the side of the drive ( I forget what there makes as) but those need to be loosened
Chris,
You may want to try a local VFD repair shop. I like the ABB and Yaskawa drives. Yaskawa has some of the best technical support I’ve experienced from an OEM.
I’d consider relocating the drive, maybe to the return section, unless it serves a kitchen. I suspect your correct regarding the high humidity in the supply section causing failure. I understand you have relatively low humidity in your area so that should help even if the economizer is open. You also have high ambient temps but the economizer shouldn’t be open far enough for the MAT in the return to be an issue when the economizer is open.
I have installed a new Carrier with this ttpe of VFD with the same results of failing. Was on the roof for theee months and the ABB controler failed. Told the factory about this issue and it seems to be news to them when I reported it. Did the exact same thing you did Chris with the contactor.
12:01 - That stuff is mostly why I watch. So the more technical the better for me.
I love those danfoss drives
Funny how carrier says you have to order the VFD from them due to programming, but there is no real programming. You just have now how to program the ABB VFD
Also the programming that Carrier did can be downloaded from any working drive.
Soft start, soft stop, 900rpm and 1800rpm (aka 30Hz & 60Hz). Probably that's the programming.
That's how got make a monopoly
Shut up you stupid service techs.
Daikin uses ABB drives and they have a table with all the modified parameters for each unit. Too bad Carrier doesn't ship these with the display.
One aftermarket solution you might look into is a liquid-cooled VFD. Or, look into remotely mounting the VFD inside the building, where humidity is less likely to be a problem.
VFD drives are notorious for failure in general, the newer ones more so than the older ones due to the cheapness of the components. VFD drives are high power, high current and high frequency switching devices and due to this, its highly sensitive to voltage and current fluctuations. 10 millisconds or more of overcurrent or overvoltage can destroy the final power transistor IGBT section which is likely whats happened. I can only assume, but maybe they put it in the blower cabinet for cooling reasons, air circulation. But I agree, it will accumulate moisture. And again, high voltage high current + water = kaboom. Highly doubt the circuit board is conformal coated either.
Sounds like there's a business opportunity for re-building dead VFD drives.
Putting the vfd in the blower section is a problem.
As soon as the compressor stops the humidity of the air coming through there is going to rise, as the evap warms up and it's wet, above the dew point of the temperature that the vsd is at, due to it living in the cold air.
The cooling fan in the vfd pulls humid air through it and water condenses on the live boards.
I am amazed that they did that, put the vfd somewhere else, that will solve the problem.
The vfd is not the problem, I am a vfd specialist and the location of the vfd in the blower section is not recommended.
What you can do is retrofit them elsewhere in the cabinet and see how it goes over a period of a year.
If there's still failures then one can look at other measures to protect them, which there are but lets change one thing at a time and evaluate the results.
I like these technical challenges, thanks for the video.
Regards, South Africa
Hey there... in Germany we use drives from SEW-Eurodrive - they Are a Little More expensive but i havent seen one fail... and they really take a beating at out Factory... metal flakes, Phase Shift, Phase loss, voltage drops and Heat to to 60degree celsius and they simply wont break
Chris, get them VFDs repaired bud! There’s no question you’ll have a regional repair shop for industrial customers. Just choose somewhere that gives you a repair warranty, does a load test and gives you a service report.
I’d be surprised if the drive was being affected solely by low supply voltage, typically they’ll run until the DC link voltage is too low and then they’ll trip before reaching the field weakening point. Power quality could be a cause, especially overvoltage. Do the drives blow the supply fuses or just stop working? Are they all the same serial number range (could be a firmware issue!).
I’d love to give you some support on this, I’ll drop you an email 😁😁
We used to repair those, and most of the stuff we had came with envirnomental damage, usually in form of metallic dust all over the inside, since they controlled lathes and mills. It's really stupid that they didn't put some sort of coating on the PCB to protect it.
@Liam We actually did this, they sell special PCB coatings ready in spray can, stinks like vomit but the board can be submerged under water and will continue working pretty much.
FrozenHaxor what type of coating did you use? Acrylic, silicone, urethane, epoxy?
@@RolasPerronasYPesada I don't know specifically what it was. It was designed as PCB coating, it went in thin coats and you could still solder through it afterwards no problem. It smelled really horrible, I vividly remember the smell of vomit mixed with solvents. I'd say it had that epoxy smell to it but I have never smelled such a stink from any other paint product. It was completely clear like car clear coat and was when dry was hard. Made the PCBs really shine. 2-3 coats was the recommendation. As far as I know there are many products out there that would do the job. I'd imagine any that is designed to stop high voltage creeping across the board and even corona discharge will suffice.
@@FrozenHaxor "MG Chemicals Silicone Modified Conformal Coating"? Thats what I use. Comes with a brush to put coats on.
You can probably get those VFDs or a pretty direct equivalent from some supplier like Grainger or Automation Direct off the shelf and not have to wait three months. I might be inclined to get one rated for a few more HP than the original if possible, since that looked like magic smoke to me on the top of the unit, not dust. I'd also explore mounting one outside the fan plenum to avoid the condensation, but the downside of that with So Cal roof mounting is possibly running the unit outside its high temp limit.
When I was a a control tech... we had a saying.... it gets SCARRIER w/ CARRIER
Carrier is infamous for its inability to stock parts for their units. It is especially bad on their "new" stuff.
It is easier for them to make everything a factory order and charge more for shipping.
Engineers have ZERO real word experience! Stupidity seems to be a prerequisite for employment.
Usually engineers are overruled by the management for business purpose. See Boeing single sensor control making plains falling.
Engineers don’t make the call on how much of a given part they stock in the warehouse. Also like Umberto said, engineers don’t always get the final call on things they are experts in. Another example to look up is the Challenger disaster.
They keep switching parts manufactures constantly
@@mman454
Okay, maybe the engineers don't have final say. I know they have no input on mfr decisions for part stock.
What I can say is that those making the final decision on the equipment that is coming out don't care if it is junk or not. Just cheap, so they can show a profit. Same with the part stock. The less on their shelves the better their bottom line is.
Both of these show little concern for the end user!!
Nice video to learn
Maybe put a light across the control terminals to avoid sending a spike when the coil drops out.
OCD HVAC mechanics, get the customer up,and running, think you,know the issue, spend the rest of the night, looking for other issues, it’s what we do
You mention their choice of location. Heat is a primary problem for vfd's so in the air path is better than with the other controls which are in a non ventilated area. As to energy savings looking at the nameplate for amps in and out can give you pause for thought.
It’s crazy it took 3 months to get the same VFD and i installed it last week and the blower didn’t turn on till second stage was calling and only keep it at 10%. I love vfd drives but hate those
Power dips have been killing our vfd drives on York's
You’re right! Not a good idea to install the VFD in the airstream, exposed to humidity. They do it to keep it cool though. Realistically the VFD should be rated for a humid & dusty environment, mostly likely in a NEMA4 enclosure, which is more expensive.
Man great video but I would be totally lost on the wiring some of the air handlers here at work are nordine and the motor heads are going bad
Corny.. you're not really a FAN of that 😂sorry that was childish. Good work, I always learn from your videos!
A small observation.... it is not a VFD drive, it is a VFD. The D is for drive, so you are saying Variable Frequency Drive Drive.
Hm. No wonder it fails, only getting all three of the top electronic failures, dirt,moisture and ofcourse heat.
Exactly. On rack systems, chillers, vfds always have there own cooling system.
And you right about "dirty power", improper voltage certainly causes issues, especially for components that have PCBs, that is exactly why most computer heavy areas have a power backup, one summer in my area here in TX the city next door had this fertilizer plant, it blew up, the city where I am ended up having a "flash" what I call it, or as the proper term is called power surge, anyway, on that road turned highway to that city where the plant was, on the right side of that road (just so happened to be on the same side), all the A/Cs and I mean all of them ended up with some issues, and it just so happened to be the same issue, Cap and condenser fan motor the next hour/morning, driving down the highway you notice the power line following right to the plant, And all the businesses/homes, of around 750 being connected to the same line, all having issues. So from my personal experience, I would say it can very well be the power is the issue, I believe in coincidences, and it is that is a major coincidence.
Squirtle Hvac also VFDs in VRF and variable speed residential split systems are attached to a U shaped piece of suction line to keep the compressor VFD cool and are coated or inside a dedicated enclosure to protect it from dirt and moistures.
Just use another vfd Reference and run signals are basically the same on all vfd units. Just set the parameters
For those saying the drives are junk: No, they're not. ABB makes excellent drives. These failures are a product of the environment they're in, not the quality of the drive. It's not the drive's fault it was placed in a damp environment. It's a piece of electronic equipment with high(ish) voltages running through it. Water is bad, m'kay?
Nobody is saying the drives are crap, we are saying the units are crap. Take the best tasting ingredent in the world and stick it in a s$#! Sandwich and I bet it tastes like s$#!. This is no different.
Before you even said anything and was talking about VFD failure, I said moisture. Moisture will kill them quicker than anything else. They can take heat (within reason), they can take dirty power, they can even take being banged around to a certain extent. One thing they absolutely CANNOT tolerate is moisture. They convert AC to DC then back to AC anyway, so dirty power coming in isn't really that big a problem. Hell, you could lose a phase and they'd still function, provided the load isn't pulling a great deal of power out of them. The line side of these things are more or less just a rectifier unit, which then stores that DC power in a giant capacitor. Then it creates it's own waveform for the motors via IGBTs. They *DO NOT* like moisture and it will kill them. If you can keep them dry, you'll keep them happy. Too bad you couldn't install them in the stream of the cool air the unit itself is producing. That nice, cool, dry air will keep them going and happy as long as you please. I guess it doesn't really help in the winter, but the air tends to be more dry in the winter anyway.
Tl;dr
It's not the drive's fault, it's the placement and/or their working environment.
Hi Chris: Can you send the VFD to a electronic repair facility and get them back in a few days? I have a 150 hp drive fail in a water plant due to overheating and moisture, as well as several small ones in a pump station due to voltage issues. Finally put a constant voltage transformer in the line and no more failures. Also why not leave the contactors in the circuit and forget the VFD's. Maybe come up with a two stage contactor arrangement for hi and lo speeds. Great video. Many thanks.
Reason you can't do the two speed thing with contactors is that the VFD is changing the frequency of the power going to the three phase motor to control it's speed.
60hz = full speed, 30 hz = half speed.
The voltage supplied in both cases is the same.
Now if it was one of those condenser fan motors that run on single phase, you could change the speed by using a contactor to swap out a different size run capacitor, but you can't do that with a three phase motor that's being fed three phase power.
EDIT: One other way you could do it is if the motor was different, some motors are wound in a way that permits you to use one set of windings for full speed and another set for half speed. Most ceiling fans are wound this way, but your typical blower motor is just a plain old three phase motor.
I’m guessing they decided to put the VFD in the air steam instead of the control enclosure to help with keeping it cool. It getting cool enough to cause moisture to condense is weird.
We had one today that went out but power cycle came back on. Then breaker started tripping immediately two days later first stage compressor failed. No short to ground but didn’t ohm out equally.
The other thing I’ve found out is that a lot of carrier units don’t come with a controller on the Danfoss VFDs and you have to order/buy one to control or fix the vfd.
Very true, when you replace one just keep the keypad and get a cat5 cable so you can monitor and program it with the panels closed
The marks on that VF drive really do look like magic smoke. I'd imagine the power transistors within are all or mostly dead shorted (if not blown apart). Even when they are run within spec, they're right on the ragged edge of their capability. Push on them (bad power quality) and they'll fall right over, often spectacularly. I can't really think of anything that'd be fast acting enough to protect them. Maybe a larger model, with ample derating for more headroom?
Not sure if the moisture would be a problem. A lot of times the circuit board and component legs will be coated with a sealing compound.
What these VFD's need to cope with the bad power factor is an industrial-grade surge protector, line filter, and an over-voltage cut-out contactor.
What they need to deal with the moisture is a different version of the same VFD.
ABB offers one that's identical except that the circuit board has a conformal coating on the PCB to keep moisture from causing problems with the electronics.
Finally, a location change would do wonders for it, as I'm sure the air in that duct is just full of dust looking for a heatsink that it can clog the fins of.