When a Drive Shorts, You'll Know Right Away11/24/2016A quick bang, maybe a smell of burnt components and the machine comes to a halt. That’s probably the first indication that the Magnetek GPD 506 AC drive has shorted. It may or may not even be good enough to show you a SC fault on the display. One such drive that we at Precision Electronic Services repaired was a model GPD506V-B128. This is a 460 Volt 128 Amp AC drive rated at 100 horsepower. The symptom that was reported when it was sent in for repair was that “The drive has a direct short across the input side and is constantly tripping the feed breaker. Black scorch marks can be viewed through the vent holes and blown parts can be seen.”Once we received the drive, the initial evaluation revealed that the entire input section of the drive was shorted. After further examination it was determined that components in the power section had failed (IGBTs and more) and this failure may have led to the damage on the front end of the drive. Per the customer’s symptom, they had tried to reset the breaker for the incoming line voltage, which also could have caused the damage to the front end of the drive and possibly additional damage to other power section components, due to re-applying AC voltage to a drive with a damaged power section. Even though the short and resulting damage did cause the level of damage that it did, the drive was still able to be repaired economically.We determined that the entire drive needed to be rebuilt to ensure a reliable repair that would work in the application. The first step of the repair process was to remove all of the contamination and debris left behind throughout the entire drive as a result of the power components exploding. All three of the integrated gated bipolar transistors or IGBT modules were replaced. Each of the diode input modules, the precharge contactor, buss fuses and the three wire cooling fan were all replaced as well. The power supply and firing board was not damaged and the control board was OK, which meant the drive programming was not affected. Even though both of the main circuit boards were not damaged, we still refurbished them according to our repair policy. This is done by going through the board completely and replacing all aged and out of tolerance components that typically have a high failure rate after years of operation. Once all of the repairs are completed on the GPD506V-B128 model or any other series or brand, the drive is reassembled and is then ready to be tested. The first stage of the final testing will be to power it up on a technician’s bench to make sure it does power up correctly and all power supplies are regulating properly. Once the drive passes this power test, it will move on to functional and load testing. During functional testing, all inputs & outputs of the drive, along with the keypad and other functions, are fully tested per the manufacturer’s specifications. Next is is the final burn-in test, where the drive is dynamically load tested at its full capacity to ensure that it will operate as it should and handle the load for which it was originally designed for an extended period of timeCall 800-732-4695 for the experts at Precision Electronic Services today for repairs on all models of the GPD 506 series and other AC drives. Back To Blog
When a Drive Shorts, You'll Know Right Away11/24/2016A quick bang, maybe a smell of burnt components and the machine comes to a halt. That’s probably the first indication that the Magnetek GPD 506 AC drive has shorted. It may or may not even be good enough to show you a SC fault on the display. One such drive that we at Precision Electronic Services repaired was a model GPD506V-B128. This is a 460 Volt 128 Amp AC drive rated at 100 horsepower. The symptom that was reported when it was sent in for repair was that “The drive has a direct short across the input side and is constantly tripping the feed breaker. Black scorch marks can be viewed through the vent holes and blown parts can be seen.”Once we received the drive, the initial evaluation revealed that the entire input section of the drive was shorted. After further examination it was determined that components in the power section had failed (IGBTs and more) and this failure may have led to the damage on the front end of the drive. Per the customer’s symptom, they had tried to reset the breaker for the incoming line voltage, which also could have caused the damage to the front end of the drive and possibly additional damage to other power section components, due to re-applying AC voltage to a drive with a damaged power section. Even though the short and resulting damage did cause the level of damage that it did, the drive was still able to be repaired economically.We determined that the entire drive needed to be rebuilt to ensure a reliable repair that would work in the application. The first step of the repair process was to remove all of the contamination and debris left behind throughout the entire drive as a result of the power components exploding. All three of the integrated gated bipolar transistors or IGBT modules were replaced. Each of the diode input modules, the precharge contactor, buss fuses and the three wire cooling fan were all replaced as well. The power supply and firing board was not damaged and the control board was OK, which meant the drive programming was not affected. Even though both of the main circuit boards were not damaged, we still refurbished them according to our repair policy. This is done by going through the board completely and replacing all aged and out of tolerance components that typically have a high failure rate after years of operation. Once all of the repairs are completed on the GPD506V-B128 model or any other series or brand, the drive is reassembled and is then ready to be tested. The first stage of the final testing will be to power it up on a technician’s bench to make sure it does power up correctly and all power supplies are regulating properly. Once the drive passes this power test, it will move on to functional and load testing. During functional testing, all inputs & outputs of the drive, along with the keypad and other functions, are fully tested per the manufacturer’s specifications. Next is is the final burn-in test, where the drive is dynamically load tested at its full capacity to ensure that it will operate as it should and handle the load for which it was originally designed for an extended period of timeCall 800-732-4695 for the experts at Precision Electronic Services today for repairs on all models of the GPD 506 series and other AC drives.