Just purchased two inverters from Inverter drive supermarket.

There selection is brilliant, as is the online info, Very easy quick set up information They have WEG CFW100 and a WEG CFW300. I was going to buy off the Bay, but for a little bit extra I went with the CFW300 @ £69 the CFW100 is about £59.

Both fitted to my Tom Senior M1 got them working in an afternoon.

PS i have no ties with the company.

I bought a Schneider 0.75 Kw for a 1 hp motor to power the R8 modified Tom Senior light vertical which we have at the museum. I chose it from the Inverter Drive Supermarket primarily because they publish a quick start guide for some of the inverters they sell. This makes wiring for remote control and programming a doddle. The quick start guide makes the extra outlay worth every penny. You won't need to be among the stream of people crying out for help when they run into problems with their cut price kit. 

https://inverterdrive.com/group/AC-Inverter-Drives-230V/Schneider-ATV12H075M2/

Edited By old mart on 25/12/2019 19:56:29

Clive,

I ended up with a couple of those inverters. Tried to buy them in early 2018 direct from a Chinese vendor similar to the one you linked for £40 ea. To cut a long story short there were lots of issues getting them where the supplier told porky pies and a mate of mine who has business connections out there intervened and they ended up eventually fulfilling the original order FOC. I ended up using one a week or so ago and as you say, it works fine. Luckily I had a bit of experience setting up another pair of Chinese inverters on my big mill that I bought for the same purpose as these but got fed up waiting for them to arrive so I knew roughly what to play with and the set up took me maybe 10 mins tops. Does exactly what I need it to do. I bought a motor from IDS recently, delivery was great, motor seems good quality, only bug bear is postage and VAT which combined was 50% of the listed price of the motor on top of the advertised price. Fair enough shipping costs and VAT can't be avoided but you do end up paying a fair bit more than the initial advertised price.

Seems to be about 50/50 on here for or against this type of foreign import versus named units through UK suppliers. Biggest criticsm seems to be quality of internal components and build quality is low or poor on the imports. That may well be true, I am not qualified to comment. The second issue is after sales and technical support which from overseas suppliers is pretty well non existent but there is plenty of info out there in forums and on YouTube that if you have some common sense the set up is not that onerous. So it comes down to price for me. At the time I bought this pair getting a similar product from a UK supplier (and I tried the usual suspects) with delivery and VAT charges (how they can send these things for £40 including carriage from China and still make a profit beats me!) was going to be three times the price and at the time that wasn't really justifiable, so I took a punt! So far I have no complaints with 2 imports running now nearly 2 years and they have done a lot of work and the latest the same as yours only having run about an hour so far. Certainly the latest one seems quieter electrically than the old variable speed DC drive set up as the workshop DAb radio was knocked out immediately the DC drive was powered up, even before the motor was turning. The latest VFD and motor dont bother it at all!

So for my money I am very satisfied so far.

Paul.

Did the 'various diagnostics' include everything recommended in the manual (p146?)

Proudly owning older or posher VFD's can be double-edged in that they often come with a full set of bells and whistles, highly configurable and flexible, but not necessarily easy to configure or wire up. Not everyone enjoys reading a few hundred pages of rocket-science instructions and complicated wiring options! Cheaper VFD's tend to be much simpler (fewer options), and most new posh units have sensible default settings that will enable a basic set-up to 'just work'.

The Mitubishi manual lists several checks in the Troubleshooting section, not all of which are obvious.

I'd double-check all the wiring because a VFD that has a display, no errors, and zero output may be legitimately 'off' due to a faulty control input – loose wire, short, broken link, duff switch etc.

Dave

Leaving aside constructional standards and the ever vexatious discussion of the difference between "safe for me in my shop" and "meets the regulations to be pretty much always safe" the big difference between inexpensive and branded units is most likely to be capacitor quality. As has been pointed out on other posts VFD boxes work their capacitors very hard indeed.

One intended for occasional hobby use, probably never delivering its rated output power, can get away with cheaper, less durable, capacitors than the full monty 24/7 rated industrial device and still last long enough to satisfy the general user.

"Rats! VFD has gone pop. Have I really had it 6 years? Was only a cheap one so I guess thats a reasonable life."

Typically branded, industrial drives will have capacitors rated for 10,000 to 20,000 hours at nominal output power. Which, historically, were too expensive for hobby units. But the price differential between inexpensive import and branded industrial from the likes of Inverter Drive Supermarket has narrowed significantly. Extra £50 or so for something with a industrial rated capacitors seems a no-brainer these days.

I'm very unhappy with the advice to get a unit rated double your motor power if you want a cheap one that will last a reasonable time. Clear evidence that the internals are cheapskate and not really up to the job. What's worse is that the inverter ought to be set up to provide the power needed by the larger motor and will be well capable of overdriving a smaller one. Not so bad at low speeds where it will run out of torque and voltage before things get seriously hairy. But at high speed the constant power range will be set by the inverter innards so you could be getting a fair bit more oomph than you expect. Potentially not nice.

OK theoretically you set the inverter parameters to match your motor. But out in the real world what hobby guy does that. Especially with a Chiglish manual. Which assumes that the parameter adjustments on a cheap inverter actually do what they are claimed to do.

Record Player Mode On

One reason I advocate the Eaton DE-1 series inverters for unsophisticated users is that they are designed to be as close to wire up and go devices as is reasonably possible. Match the device power to the motor and everything will be preset to work well, and safely, in any pretty normal application. Its a pity there isn't a simple pendant box with stop – start buttons and a calibrated knob to set speed available too. The usual frequency display is nice but, frankly, overkill.

Record Player Mode Off

Clive

Edited By Clive Foster on 26/12/2019 12:29:50

Can somebody explain how an inverter can be too powerfull for a motor ? I would have thought that a 5KW inverter powering a1KW motor would be very under worked run cooler and less stressful on its components .Provided it is the same output voltage as motors input voltage ,it can’t over power the motor,as the motor will only take current and power according to its load.

Never ever heard of a kilogram Joule per second as a unit before! That would be mass energy per unit time.

The usual connection between mass and energy includes the velocity of light squared?

I guess it all depends on your individual tolerance band on the risk/reward scale. The four legs good-two legs bad approach is not really very helpful.

I would expect anybody contemplating use of this type of equipment to do their research and understand how to program the critical safety parameters and use the device correctly. Regardless of source, these are not 'plug n play' devices.

It is true that there is practically no backup for these low cost VFDs and although documentation is available, it is far from comprehensive, so they may not suit a naïve user.

The OP appears to be familiar with VFDs and anyone can google XSY-AT1 for a sample 'manual' for that class of device (actually only a couple of sheets of A4). They can then decide whether the provided functionality and guidance for that device meets their operational requirement and is within their competence). A comparison can be made with the alternate range of 'branded' VFDs available. I am sure the vendor (if they are any good) would be willing to send a pdf of the 'instruction' sheet if asked.

I would certainly recommend for any VFD use that the unit is operated correctly and the correct manual for the device is used (normally the one supplied). Critical parameters should always be correctly set with respect to the safe use of the motor and safe operating requirements (eg. voltage ranges, over voltage protection, operation frequencies, max output currents, ramps, braking, motor poles/speed and input requirements). Some parameters may be testable prior to full operation.

I may have been exceptionally lucky, but I have not had any issues with these devices over the past two years, including running higher capacity inverters on low power motor. However, I do make sure to set the overcurrent (with reference to the motor plate) and other available parameters (response time) correctly. On the occasional lock up experienced, the inverter cut supply and faulted into the safe condition in one second.

It may be a false sense of security, but I feel much safer running a machine with even an unbranded Chinese VFD control than a single phase machine where the motor control is limited to the on-off switch.

Hi, just noticed your spelling mistake “manulas”, in the same post as you criticised my use of “k”.

Remember we are not all perfect and all make mistakes . I think the content of the post is more important than criticising grammar.I also find a lot of posters are good at criticising, without giving any positive contribution to a post.

Having said all this ,I still enjoy reading posts and have learned from them.

Maurice

A mistake is a mistake ,we both hit the wrong keys.

Regarding the VFD ,surely the control circuits are more or less the same on low power inverters.The output power will be governed by the size of the insulated gate bipolar transistors and overload settings etc .I can’t see how it affects the pulse width modulation frequency or the microcontroller.

Maurice