- Joined
- May 7, 2024
- Messages
- 13
Howdy!
I'm having a weird issue with a VFD setup, and I can't figure it out for the life of me. I've tried searching the forums, the goog, and basically any forum that I think could have info but either I'm not searching the right terms or this issue is kinda unusual or both. I'm very new to this and this is my first time dealing with a VFD, please bear with me
Here's what happens:
In V/F mode, the motor seems to run like normal. However, it's my understanding that SVC provides better torque at lower speeds, so I want the motor to run in this mode (it's final living place will be on a lathe, I want a bit of extra torque for low-speed operations like parting, the stock DC motor isn't cutting it, so I figured it's "go big or go home")
As soon as I enable SVC, the motor often fails to start, or squeals before physically jumping and starting, but always cuts out at low speeds with an err09 fault (undervoltage) - squeal seems to get louder before the cut-out. Speed control at higher speeds seems to be ok, but during startup and low speeds it acts very weird
It's seemingly random if it actually starts moving in the first place. It draws more current when doing this before the fault occurs (I know this because I was running an undersized 10A fuse at the start without the breaker switch and it only popped them in this state. Do not worry, I'm using appropriately sized fuses now alongside the breaker, and now it just errors and cuts out safely , though it still causes the lights to dim a little, and my hand remains close to the power switch, just in case)
Autotune runs correctly (at least I think so, I don't really have anything to compare it to), but then running the motor still fails
Running at low speeds in V/F mode is fine, it's fine at any speed even.
Video is attached showing how it behaves, I'm often pretty bad at explaining these sorts of things, so maybe this'll help shed some light? It's very loud and annoying though, recommend turning volume down, I only kept the sound in case it gives away what the issue is
I just can't quite figure out why I'm getting an undervolt error, but only in very specific circumstances. The fact that the state of failure is consistent is encouraging from a debugging point of view at least. Err09 has these details:
I know that 1 and 2 are not the issue, and I don't know how to validate/check/repair the other potential issues.
Since it's a cheap import, I don't think I'll get much in the way of support. Aliexpress sellers are usually pretty good with basic things, but this is a little more complicated than my usual "this part is kinda bent/missing, send me a new one please" I guess. It's been too long for buyer protection/returns/refunds too.
Other details:
I have only run the motor with No Load so far. I'd read that the auto-tune requires no load, and I wanted everything configured and ready before I made it annoying to tweak
The VFD is a "9600E 1T3" that I bought on aliexpress for about 100€. According to the page listing and manual, it takes in 220v single phase AC, converts it to 380v 3 phase AC. So in theory it's all good for my 230v system (I'm in Spain, usually measures around 238v where I live). I got the 4kW model as I'd seen listings recommend getting the model rated above the motor rating, which makes sense to me (bigger rating == bigger buffer before stuff starts melting), but for all I know maybe that's BS and the VFDs are already built to withstand any extra draw for the motor they're marketed for.
The motor itself is a cheapo 2.2kW ~3hp 380V 3 phase async motor from Vevor, but it seems to run pretty well. Given everything works in V/F mode, I think the motor is fine (and I've managed to not melt it yet )
Motor Plate Details:
Motor wiring configuration is the same as in its manual:
Current VFD Wiring:
Motor terminals are matched to the UVW on the VFD, couple of ferrous beads around the wires.
Power resistors are put in series to match roughly the 400w power dissipation and 180ohms the manual recommends for a brake load - removing or changing the brake load does not alter the SVC fault behavior. (They are of course wired to the brake load pins)
Removing the power filter doesn't alter the SVC fault behavior
There is no contactor as the VFD already resets and turns off when power is lost, it requires human input to start running the motor after power loss (maybe I'll have to change this when I add an external power switch, but I haven't gotten that far yet)
(the mess in there is just PVC shavings from adding holes to the electronic box I've put all this in, so no risk of shorts from that but definitely needs a bit of cleanup. The issue existed before I put it in the box. I was hoping the proper grounding would help things)
VFD Settings (anything un-marked was left as default, highlighted/labelled are the only settings I edited so far):
There are a lot of settings, but I only edited these few. The rest seemed beyond "I am making sure the motor at least runs with basic settings", and more for fine tuning. I did mess with acceleration times to see if that would have an effect, but no dice. I have tried different P0-14 (frequency lower limit) values, but this didn't really help either. Even at 12Hz it could still get stuck during startup, or make the motor hop, with the added benefit of losing access to the lower speeds (the motor runs fine at as low as 1Hz in V/F mode, though realisically I'd probably only ever run it as low as 5Hz)
If you want to check out the rest of the parameters available, I can't post links yet but the manual is the first google result for "vfd 9600e manual"
The way some of these settings just do not line up with how the physical unit behaves also makes me suspect some weirdness. For example, my VFD lets me edit P0-00, despite the manual saying it's fixed per-VFD model. Not exactly encouraging. Additionally, the carrier frequency max is 15.0, not 16.0 (ow my ears either way) and I cannot set P1-00 to 0, only 1 and 2, so not sure if that's the problem either. There is nothing in the manual to indicate this limitation.
These discrepencies make me worry that the firmware on the VFD isn't the same as the one referenced in the manual, and maybe bad firmware is the reason SVC doesn't work. Heck, for all I know, err09 could be totally different for the actual firmware in this unit vs the manual and maybe it's not undervoltage at all.
Interestingly, if I set the speed control to closed loop "Speed Sensor Vector Control" (I tried this in case the manual had the order wrong or something, given the other oddities), the motor does start running, but is stuck at slow speed (startup speed I guess, since it thinks the motor isn't moving). It also doesn't stop if I press stop in this mode, so I cut the power before anything weird could happen. It is strange to me that it can get it started in this mode but not in Sensorless, clearly it can provide the startup power in a vector mode without making the whole motor jump. It kinda suggests to me there is something wrong with the sensorless system. Maybe auto-tune is doing something wrong, despite looking like it completes correctly? Or maybe there's something on one of the boards that's causing an unwanted voltage drop or something to read wrong?
I suppose the questions boil down to this:
I'm having a weird issue with a VFD setup, and I can't figure it out for the life of me. I've tried searching the forums, the goog, and basically any forum that I think could have info but either I'm not searching the right terms or this issue is kinda unusual or both. I'm very new to this and this is my first time dealing with a VFD, please bear with me
Here's what happens:
In V/F mode, the motor seems to run like normal. However, it's my understanding that SVC provides better torque at lower speeds, so I want the motor to run in this mode (it's final living place will be on a lathe, I want a bit of extra torque for low-speed operations like parting, the stock DC motor isn't cutting it, so I figured it's "go big or go home")
As soon as I enable SVC, the motor often fails to start, or squeals before physically jumping and starting, but always cuts out at low speeds with an err09 fault (undervoltage) - squeal seems to get louder before the cut-out. Speed control at higher speeds seems to be ok, but during startup and low speeds it acts very weird
It's seemingly random if it actually starts moving in the first place. It draws more current when doing this before the fault occurs (I know this because I was running an undersized 10A fuse at the start without the breaker switch and it only popped them in this state. Do not worry, I'm using appropriately sized fuses now alongside the breaker, and now it just errors and cuts out safely , though it still causes the lights to dim a little, and my hand remains close to the power switch, just in case)
Autotune runs correctly (at least I think so, I don't really have anything to compare it to), but then running the motor still fails
Running at low speeds in V/F mode is fine, it's fine at any speed even.
Video is attached showing how it behaves, I'm often pretty bad at explaining these sorts of things, so maybe this'll help shed some light? It's very loud and annoying though, recommend turning volume down, I only kept the sound in case it gives away what the issue is
I just can't quite figure out why I'm getting an undervolt error, but only in very specific circumstances. The fact that the state of failure is consistent is encouraging from a debugging point of view at least. Err09 has these details:
I know that 1 and 2 are not the issue, and I don't know how to validate/check/repair the other potential issues.
Since it's a cheap import, I don't think I'll get much in the way of support. Aliexpress sellers are usually pretty good with basic things, but this is a little more complicated than my usual "this part is kinda bent/missing, send me a new one please" I guess. It's been too long for buyer protection/returns/refunds too.
Other details:
I have only run the motor with No Load so far. I'd read that the auto-tune requires no load, and I wanted everything configured and ready before I made it annoying to tweak
The VFD is a "9600E 1T3" that I bought on aliexpress for about 100€. According to the page listing and manual, it takes in 220v single phase AC, converts it to 380v 3 phase AC. So in theory it's all good for my 230v system (I'm in Spain, usually measures around 238v where I live). I got the 4kW model as I'd seen listings recommend getting the model rated above the motor rating, which makes sense to me (bigger rating == bigger buffer before stuff starts melting), but for all I know maybe that's BS and the VFDs are already built to withstand any extra draw for the motor they're marketed for.
The motor itself is a cheapo 2.2kW ~3hp 380V 3 phase async motor from Vevor, but it seems to run pretty well. Given everything works in V/F mode, I think the motor is fine (and I've managed to not melt it yet )
Motor Plate Details:
Motor wiring configuration is the same as in its manual:
Current VFD Wiring:
Motor terminals are matched to the UVW on the VFD, couple of ferrous beads around the wires.
Power resistors are put in series to match roughly the 400w power dissipation and 180ohms the manual recommends for a brake load - removing or changing the brake load does not alter the SVC fault behavior. (They are of course wired to the brake load pins)
Removing the power filter doesn't alter the SVC fault behavior
There is no contactor as the VFD already resets and turns off when power is lost, it requires human input to start running the motor after power loss (maybe I'll have to change this when I add an external power switch, but I haven't gotten that far yet)
(the mess in there is just PVC shavings from adding holes to the electronic box I've put all this in, so no risk of shorts from that but definitely needs a bit of cleanup. The issue existed before I put it in the box. I was hoping the proper grounding would help things)
VFD Settings (anything un-marked was left as default, highlighted/labelled are the only settings I edited so far):
There are a lot of settings, but I only edited these few. The rest seemed beyond "I am making sure the motor at least runs with basic settings", and more for fine tuning. I did mess with acceleration times to see if that would have an effect, but no dice. I have tried different P0-14 (frequency lower limit) values, but this didn't really help either. Even at 12Hz it could still get stuck during startup, or make the motor hop, with the added benefit of losing access to the lower speeds (the motor runs fine at as low as 1Hz in V/F mode, though realisically I'd probably only ever run it as low as 5Hz)
If you want to check out the rest of the parameters available, I can't post links yet but the manual is the first google result for "vfd 9600e manual"
The way some of these settings just do not line up with how the physical unit behaves also makes me suspect some weirdness. For example, my VFD lets me edit P0-00, despite the manual saying it's fixed per-VFD model. Not exactly encouraging. Additionally, the carrier frequency max is 15.0, not 16.0 (ow my ears either way) and I cannot set P1-00 to 0, only 1 and 2, so not sure if that's the problem either. There is nothing in the manual to indicate this limitation.
These discrepencies make me worry that the firmware on the VFD isn't the same as the one referenced in the manual, and maybe bad firmware is the reason SVC doesn't work. Heck, for all I know, err09 could be totally different for the actual firmware in this unit vs the manual and maybe it's not undervoltage at all.
Interestingly, if I set the speed control to closed loop "Speed Sensor Vector Control" (I tried this in case the manual had the order wrong or something, given the other oddities), the motor does start running, but is stuck at slow speed (startup speed I guess, since it thinks the motor isn't moving). It also doesn't stop if I press stop in this mode, so I cut the power before anything weird could happen. It is strange to me that it can get it started in this mode but not in Sensorless, clearly it can provide the startup power in a vector mode without making the whole motor jump. It kinda suggests to me there is something wrong with the sensorless system. Maybe auto-tune is doing something wrong, despite looking like it completes correctly? Or maybe there's something on one of the boards that's causing an unwanted voltage drop or something to read wrong?
I suppose the questions boil down to this:
- Has anyone seen this before? What do you think is the best next step to try to take to close in on the core issue? What should I be looking at/for?
- Any advice regarding repairing this, if this needs a physical repair? I'm ok with basic electronic repairs, but this is a little more advanced than a breadmaker or tinkering with arduinos . I'm not sure where to start looking or what values to expect
- Am I better off just trying a different VFD? If so, would a 2.2kW model work fine, rather than paying out for a 4kW model? Any recommendations?
- Can I just slap together a speed sensor with a few magnets and a hall effect sensor and see if I can run it in closed-loop mode, or is making a sensor for a VFD a little more involved? The manual makes it sound like I need a specific type of encoder and card to report the info to the VFD
