Tech Quiz #86

by William Jones
Shermco Industries

This edition of Tech Quiz was written by William Jones, a Drives and Automation Department technician at Shermco. The theme for this issue of NETA World
is Power Electronics, and Mr. Jones has chosen a different format than the usual
multiple choice.

Q1

A poultry plant had to replace bearings in one of

their motors about three times a year. The application is a variable-speed drive (VFD) for an oven fan. The
belt tension was always found to be set properly. Mechanically, everything was in proper order. What was happening
and how could it be solved?

A1

Bearings in motors that are powered by VFDs

sometimes fail due to common mode shaft voltage
causing current to pass through the bearings. Because pulse
width modulated (PWM) voltages do not sum instantaneously to zero with respect to ground, there is potential for
voltage to build up on the shaft causing current flow through
motor bearings. The air gap and grease in the bearing act like
a dielectric. When the shaft voltage exceeds the dielectric
strength of the bearing lubricant, an arc occurs. This arcing
causes pitting in the bearing race and the rolling elements
thus leading to premature failure. One possible solution is to
reduce the carrier frequency of the PWM. Also, make sure
that the motor is VFD compatible. (See NEMA MG-1,
Section IV, Part 31.)

Q2

A maintenance technician added several more 120

Vac outputs on a PLC for a machine expansion.
Rather than adding a larger control power transformer to
handle the new input/output (I/O), he pulled a single wire
carrying 120 Vac from an adjacent panel to feed the new
outputs. Over time the neutral wire in the existing PLC
control panel burned up. Why?

A2

Although both new and old I/Os were supplied

by 120 Vac potential, the sources were not out of
phase from one another, causing the existing neutral to
carry the current for both the existing and new outputs. If
the two hot wires measure zero volts between them, then
they are in phase with one another and the neutral has to
carry the current for both hot conductors. If the two hot
conductors measure 240 Vac between them, then the currents cancel each other and only the difference flows through
the neutral.

www.netaworld.org

Q3

A dc drive had failed and was too costly to repair,

so it was replaced with a new digital drive. Several
days went by and the customer noticed that the motor oscillated in speed and drew slightly more current than it used
to. Why would a new drive cause this?

A3

If you are thinking drive to motor tuning, that

would be an obvious place to start. However,if this
fails to correct the problem, check the polarity of the motor armature conductors between the drive and motor. On
all stabilized shunt-wound dc motors, the series field lead
(labeled S2) must be connected to the negative output of
the drive and the shunt field wire (labeled F2 or F4 depending on field wiring) must be connected to the negative side
of the field supply. If the rotation of the motor needs to
be changed, then swap either A1 or A2 leads with the S1
lead. When stabilized shunt-wound motor connections are
not polarized properly the motor can exhibit higher than
normal armature current and unstable speed operation.
IMPORTANT NOTE: If the motor is going to be used
on a regenerative drive, it would a good idea to drop the S1
and S2 connections out of the circuit and tape them off.

Q4

A newspaper in East Texas decided to upgrade its

printing press with two new digital dc drives and
change all control relay logic with a PLC. The PLC used
the same 120 Vac power that fed the computer server room.
Every Tuesday and Thursday evening between 9:00 PM
and 10:30 PM, the PLC lost its memory and program. The
servers, however, were fine.
What was the problem?

A4

On those evenings the company that cleaned

the offices for the newspaper plugged a vacuum
cleaner in an outlet in the server room in order to vacuum
the carpet in the hall. The servers were not affected because
they were on a UPS which filtered out the EMI from the
vacuum cleaner.

Winter 2008-2009 NETA WORLD