Can anyone recommend a VFD brand and a good supplier? 1

[indigoer]

Hi everyone.

I would like to know what are some brands you have had good experience with and what to stay away from. And do you have any recommendations for a good supplier. I don't have a lot of experiance with VFD's so a good supplier is important.

What is important to me is:
Well made product that does not need tinkering (A set it and forget it).
A supplier who can sell me the correct product, (being able to size it etc.)
A supplier/company with good tech support that would be willing to walk me through every step of setting it up if needed.
Price is always a concern, but I am willing to pay more for a good product.

I had been ordering from Famaga previously.
I've attached a picture of my Spindles plate if interested.

 

[mparenteau]

I've had good results with Allen-Bradley drives.

Mike

 

[itsmoked]

Automation Direct

Here you get quick, free, hand-holding support. Excellent prices and free two day shipping. I use all their drives and have never had a drive related problem.

Keith Cress
kcress -

http://www.flaminsystems.com

 

[buzzp]

All for LV:
I prefer not to use AB drives. They don't seem to perform well in other than an ideal environment. The support is not very good without a contract either.
I like ABB drives for less than an ideal environment. Comms is somewhat of a clunky setup for Ethernet. The support is horrible, unless your supplier has a knowledgeable person on staff.
Schneider seems to make a good drive and the support is usually better than ABB. If interfacing with a PLC, your supplier will have to supply the add on instructions or you write them yourself. The factory doesn't really get involved with this in my experience.
Of the three above, the powerflex drives have had the most failures.

 

[jraef]

Support and sourcing is a local decision and we don't know where you are. For example if you are in the US, you will have access to good support from Rockwell no matter where you are (you don't need a contract for VFD support), but you will not get good support from Siemens in many areas outside of large industrial regions. Conversely if you are in Africa or the Middle East, you will not likely get good support from Rockwell but Siemens or ABB may be your only realistic option. Rockwell sells more VFDs in North America than all others combined, but is #3 worldwide. Siemens (#1) and ABB (#2) sell more drives in the rest of the world, then Danfoss (now #4) and Schneider (#5). Yaskawa, Mitsubishi, Toshiba, Hitachi, even Delta (also sold as AutomationDirect) and Invertek (sold under several other names) all make good drives, you can't really go too wrong with any of them, but finding support for them can be challenging unless you have a good LOCAL source. That's the key.

As a gross general rule, none of the major players make junk, otherwise they would be out of the business. The technology to make good drives is not that difficult to attain any more and most companies that have reputations to uphold are conscientious about what they make and sell. There ARE however a lot of junk drives coming in from China, sold on eBay, Alibaba and Amazon for prices that are too good to be true, and they are. Many of these are of extremely questionable construction, but are sold under phony names (like "Happy Lucky Drive Co. Ltd.", literally a name that was out there for a while) or no name listed at all. Then the on-line sellers disappear once they sell out their stock, so failure rates and dissatisfied customers are irrelevant to them. Steer clear of those temptations and you should be fine from a product standpoint.


" We are all here on earth to help others; what on earth the others are here for I don't know." -- W. H. Auden

 

[krisys]

I feel this panel is anchored to Allen Bradely only. If you need the options, here are few more vendors:-

a) ABB, both LV and MV range
b) Siemens, both LV and MV range
c) GE-Converteam, for medium voltage
d) Schneider for LV

There are few more suppliers, but I do not recall the names at the moment.

Now you have to specify for what rating you need the VFD. Because, some vendors are strong in MV whereas others are strong in LV products.

If you are looking for large drives (say, 1MW - 15 MW), there are many associated issues. You have to narrow down your requirements from the generic term VFD (VSD as ANSI world calls it).

​

 

[jraef]

GE/Converteam is no more... that part of GE was bought by ABB, who had no use for that division.

The nameplate is hard to see at that size, but it appears for be 380V, 0.4kW...


" We are all here on earth to help others; what on earth the others are here for I don't know." -- W. H. Auden

 

[wde0665]

For better or worse, going with Magnatek for 480VAC crane and hoist applications, and Yaskawa for other general-duty 480VAC applications. Pleased so far...

Agree with a previous post about Allen-Bradley / Rockwell now seeming to have reliability challenges in a heavy industrial environment - their Powerflex series was a tremendous disappointment for us when upgrading from their 1336 and 1394 series...were changing failed drives out fast