EDC believes in investing in continuing professional development; keeping employees educated with the latest VFD and automation technology advances of the more than 40 brands we service and are factory trained and/or authorized on is a top priority. We appreciate the dedication and commitment our employees show in upholding our high standards.
Our EDC service engineers and Nidec Field Engineer and Trainer, Stan Klepadlo, displayed just that sort of dedication and commitment when braving a late-February snowstorm for training on Emerson, Control Techniques and Nidec VFDs. EDC provided the pizza as our employees and Stan stayed late into the evening for two consecutive nights of hands-on training during the raging snowstorm after a long day of work! The training included our entire team earning certification on Control Techniques HVAC Drive H300 Digital Bypass.
“Having a long history of working with EDC, I have to say it is obvious that EDC has really high standards when it comes to hiring service engineers. The training on the drives quickly accelerated beyond the basics as EDC’s engineers began asking questions which prompted the training to elevate to a more advanced technical session,” commented Stan. “With EDC’s large, experienced team and prompt response time, it is good to know that our customers can count on a highly-reliable resource when needed.”
In 2017, Control Techniques and Emerson’s Industrial Automation division were acquired by Nidec Corporation from Emerson Electric Company. Control Techniques is now part of the Nidec Motor Corporation. Together their portfolio of products includes AC, DC, and servo variable speed drives as well as power conversion technologies. For more than 40 years, these brands have been trusted in many commercial and industrial markets – HVAC, elevator, manufacturing automation, and industrial applications which demand energy efficiency, such as fans, pumps and compressors.
Technical review by Scott Sullivan, electrical engineer at EDC
Control Techniques’ representative, Stan, started off the training session by highlighting the differences between the company’s now obsolete Affinity series drive and the new H300 series drive.
The first difference of note is that the H300 has an additional programmable form C-relay output. These outputs are used when drive-specific conditions occur and an external system, such as a building management system (BMS), needs to be notified. There are several instances where these could be used, the most common being a fault output. If the drive faults, a relay will open to alert the BMS and another will close to illuminate a fault indicator. Another possible use could be for a drive started condition. In HVAC, the drive start condition can be used to open a damper, which will in turn allow the drive to run once it is fully opened. A third possible use is for a drive running condition. This can be used in HVAC for a supply and return fan. The start command for the return fan is routed through the supply fan’s running relay. This prevents the return from running unless the supply is running and automatically stops the return when the supply stops. These 3 examples are some of the many uses of relays. The inclusion of an additional relay on the H300 drive allows for greater flexibility when incorporating it into a system.
The H300 drive also has slots for expansion ports to extend the drive’s functionality. If the customer has a specific need that the “out of the box” drive can’t provide, these expansion ports can be used to meet that need. An example of this might be if a specific type of serial communication is used (i.e. BACnet, Profibus, CANopen etc.), the drive can be made to support it even if it does not natively. The expansion ports can also be used to expand the drive’s I/O capabilities. While the base drive already has an impressive suite of digital and analog I/O, if the customer requires more of one or both of these, it can be accomplished by these expansion ports.
Another upgrade of the H300 series is the inclusion of a real time clock and programmable events that utilize it. This can be used to start and stop the drive or change its output frequency at specific times of the day or week, without the aid of a BMS. While external control of a drive is commonplace, there are times that these events could be useful. An example might be a building that is still under construction. A BMS would probably be implemented when the building is completed, but in the meantime these events could be used to control water pumps and cooling fans. Examples of programmable events could be starting a drive before employees arrive in the morning and shutting down at night after they leave, or perhaps reducing a drive to a minimum speed on Friday afternoons and returning it to full speed Monday morning. These events add flexibility when choosing how to install this type of drive.
Our customers rely on our field service engineers to be experts on the VFD drives keeping their building and manufacturing facilities running at peak efficiency and that is exactly what we deliver. EDC is brand neutral, therefore our service engineers are continuously updating training certifications on over 40 brands of drives and PLCs.
Additional Resources:
https://www.nidec.com/en-NA/corporate/news/2017/news0201-02/
