Can I Power a VFD with 115V Single Phase During Bench Programming?

'The programming bench location won't have 230V.'

Then, get a suitable step-up transformer.

Interesting day in the City: [Archive] - Benchrest Central Forums

Hitachi L100 Series Inverter Instruction Manual - Igor Chudov

Some what related:

Redi-Flo Variable Frequency Drive - Enviro-Equipment, Inc.

Use a 115/230 transformer or a 1:1 ratio isolation transformer with the windings in series to double your line voltage or a common multi volt HID type lamp ballast and use it as a boost transformer by using the 115 AC input lead as the supply and the 230 VAC lead as your output.

Being there is no load on the VFD unit it will only need a few 10's of VA size transformer or ballast to run it.

What does the manual say?

Some variable speed drives have a wide input voltage range, does yours? If not, you will need a simple step-up transformer (assuming your VFD is a single phase input and not a three phase input).

The manual is silent on 115V operation - although Hitachi does support single phase 240 on 5hp and larger drives and explains why derating is required, and how to calculate it.

115V directly in 'should' work if the input just goes to a rectifier/chopper/smoother to DC, at least enough to power the electronics to allow programming. Just thought I'd ask to see if people did this as a matter of course.

The drive is on order so we'll try it when it gets here.

Thanks everyone for the responses. I could get step up transformer if need be (or a really long 240V extension cord ;)

.

Rob

Even a Variac might work as these can (generally) step up the voltage 10-20% which may be enough to hit the lower operating limit of the VFD's operating voltage range.

Typically a VFD has under voltage protection, and typically it will not allow the line voltage to go as low as 50%, and typically you cannot program a drive while it is in a state of being tripped. I'd be surprised if that works.

There is no typical on how drives attain their control power, but on small cheap drives like the Hitachis, it is usually a DC-DC converter off of the DC bus. That converter probably has a crowbar circuit that will shut it down if the bus voltage is too low. Sometimes drives have a separate SMPS off of the AC input that may have a wider input voltage tolerance, but that is more often seen on larger drives.