When designing the new Powerdrive variable speed drives, the engineers at Leroy Somer wanted to keep components and wiring to a minimum, make them easy to install and commission, be reliable and offer simple maintenance. T
he engineers succeeded, developing a modular family of drives covering 45-675kW with air or liquid cooling and open- or closed-loop vector or simple variable-frequency control. The individual inverter, rectifier, cooling and electronic modules make for easy accessibility and the front-panel-mounted interface and optional remote keyboard make reading and writing the main parameters extremely simple.
Powerdrives can be ordered already set up for most major applications, allowing commissioning to be achieved with only eight parameters. There is automatic auto-tuning at the first start-up and all the parameters can be saved to the patented Xpresskey with one click of a button.
Multilingual, PC-based commissioning software provides a motor database, user help and a setup wizard. The drive also tests itself at low voltage on initial switch-on to avoid irreparable damage in the event of shorts or earths on motor phases, for example. The drives are also much less susceptible to power disturbances thanks to new technology developed in collaboration with EDF.
Powerdrive's enclosures are sealed to IP21 or IP54 and there are a host of options such as filters, encoders, units for most fieldbus technologies, dynamic breaking and emergency-stop features.
"
