rusty (Customer) asked a question.

Has Anybody had issues with a click PLC communicating to a FC51 Danfoss Drive? I am sending the run command and the speed reference to the drive but instead of holding at the reference that is sent it haunts up and down from the set point by +- 5 hrz.

It gets its reference about every two seconds and when I speed that up it helps but doesn't solve the problem.


  • OkiePC (Customer)

    I am assuming you are using Modbus communications for control?

    Give us more info.

  • strantor2 (Customer)

    Is this something that was working properly before ​and now it's not? Or something that you're putting together for the first time?

  • rusty (Customer)

    I generally use Altivar drives but this is my first Danfoss setup.yes I am Communicating Modbus RTU and sending (047C)Hex for the run command to register 402810.the speed reference has a range of (0-4000)hex which i scale to 0-60 HRZ.and sending it so register 402811.The modbus is set up correctly because i am reading back the status word from register 416030 and the motor HRZ from register 416050.and it is working just fine.

  • OkiePC (Customer)

    I don't have a manual handy for that particular drive, so I am going to throw out some WAGs.

     

    1. Is the VFD hitting a current limit and set up to reduce output to avoid faulting?
    2. Wildest of the WAGS: Is the speed reference restricted only to the Modbus command? I have worked with some drives that by default will SUM all the activated references and you have to drill in and defeat that capability. One drive in particular had me scratching my head for an hour over this, it was picking up noise from a 0-10v terminal that had nothing wired to it and it was jumping around. This is a stretch, but something to look for.
    3. Is VFD set up for PI(D) control and you are writing a process value or setpoint instead of a speed command? This could account for the drive variation if it thinks there is a setpoint and a process variable and it thinks it is in charge of adjusting to make them match. This should not result in hunting unless the SP or PV was changing though.
    4. Could there be a timing issue where the Modbus timeout in the drive is just slightly shorter than the time between messages from the PLC? The drive is stopping because it thinks the comms have failed, but then it gets fresh data and picks back up.

    All these are unlikely except perhaps the first one, and then you wouldn't expect it to overshoot the command reference by 5 Hz (maybe 0.5 Hz)...

     

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  • rusty (Customer)

    its no where near its current limit.yes I set up all the references to take reading from the modbus signal .I do believe this drive does sum up the references .to me it seems like the drive wants to get a reference constantly like for an example a analog signal would be continues .with modbus I don't think I can achieve this because I use a Drum sequence to send the send and receives. which in turn every 500 ms it goes to next step .I have 4 send/ receives so it gets its reference every 2 seconds .and the drive is not stopping and stating up,so every 2 sec is good for the command but some reason not the reference .and the danfoss tech support is not of any help I keep getting a run around which is typical for those companies .thank you ADC for the best tech support in the industry.

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  • OkiePC (Customer)

    I haven't used a Drum for Message sequencing, but I typically space them with a timer and set it for 50ms or so. I occasionally run into a situation where too fast causes hiccups on older stuff, but 50ms seems to be plenty slow enough and I don't know of a good reason to go slower than that.

     

    All drives will require that you read or write something in order for the drive to "know" the comm channel is still working. They have all some sort of time period that will cause an alarm or a fault (usually configurable) if no comm port activity occurs.

     

    Some of the VFDs I have worked with have a default comm loss time setting of 5 seconds and I will turn that up to 10 seconds (water pumps are my field and it is safe to go up to 30 seconds for a comm loss delay).

     

    You might already know all this, but other readers may not, so forgive me if I am stating things that are obvious.

     

    I downloaded the FC51 book and searched Modbus, and I think the comm timeout setting is parameter 8-36 and the default is 5 seconds. They call it Max Response Delay, which is in my opinion misleading since I think of "response delay" as what they describe in the previous parameter which has to do with how fast the VFD replies to a message. Anyhow, try turning that up to the max and see if it changes the behavior.

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  • OkiePC (Customer)

    Reading further in the programming manual, it does look like if the asterisk marks the default settings, that merging the terminals with the "bus" commands is their default. It appears that if you want only the communication port to control the drive, setting parameter 8-01 "Control Site" to "[2] Control Word Only" instead of "[0] Digital and Control Word" would rule out the summing of signals being the culprit.

  • rusty (Customer)

    it is set to control word only,and the timeout is set up too i have that set for 2 sec and when i unplug the rs485 connector from the plc it will go into fault after 2 seconds ,i am wondering it it is not 8-35 and 8-36 parameters .with those I have not touched because I dont know their purpose .could it possible those settings are my ishhue

  • rusty (Customer)

    the comm timeout is parameter 8-3 that i have set to 2 sec.it works.8-35 is set to 10 ms and it called minimum delay time between receiving a request and transmitting a response.(this has me confused .is it referring to a feedback? i set that parameter to 500 ms and it did not respond and went into a fault ,I have not played with 8-36 yet i will go try that as well.

  • rusty (Customer)

    changing the 8-36 parameter doesn't help either.

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