- Joined
- Dec 3, 2013
- Messages
- 1,844
I don't have that controller, so this may not help... However, I was setting up a new VFD for my Bridgeport last night and ran into a bit of trouble. It wasn't running like it should. After poking around a bit, I realized there is a parameter labeled "Rated motor frequency". The default was 400Hz. No idea why as I've never seen a motor that wanted that high of a frequency. Changing it to 60Hz made it run great at all the speeds I wanted it to run at, about 20-100Hz. My VFD is a Chinesium special, so your nicer unit might not need something this simple.
On the KBDA drive they come from the factory with the native Hz set at 60Hz and then the user can change to 50Hz if need be.
KB Electronics technical support has been amazing. The engineer who has been helping me has gone out of his way to find a solution. He had me try many different parameter settings and I had a direct line to him for communicating back and forth. During the troubleshooting I sent him video of all the different configurations we tried and he finally came to the conclusion that the motor I have is not fully compatible with that drive. Mostly due to being a 3600 rpm motor. Apparently the KBDA drive doesn't do what he called "dead time compensation" which affects some 3600 rpm motors. I believe this is something they are working on to improve. This affects my motors behavior from about 40Hz to 55Hz. He said it will work fine with a 1800 rpm motor. The bad news is my belt grinder design is based on a 3600 rpm motor so getting another 3600 rpm motor has a good chance of not working. That left me with looking for another drive controller.
I was blown away this morning when I got a call from KB Electronics wanting my address so they could send me another drive controller that will work with my motor at no cost. Their only stipulation was that I call them back and let them know how it works. I get to keep the drive controller I already have to use for another project. WOW!
The drive that will work with the 3hp 3600 rpm motor is the KBCA-29(1p). It's not digital with a key pad but I'm not complaining.