FCMA Soft Starter

Please confirm the starter trip settings are correct to the pump manufacturer's recommendations in each case?

Such is the problem of using a technology that is only provided by one resource in the entire world. Unless you happen to stumble across one of the other few adopters of it, you are not likely to find help from anyone other than the OEM, because we (as a community) have no direct experience with this sysyem. And now that the single source OEM has you, get out the checkbook! Good luck.

Perhaps your pump motor is kick start type and not soft start type. Some motors don't start unless you inject high current at start up and then have normal run current. Soft starters are good for system having no load at initial condition and require least power to work for the load gradually.

Are you electrical engineer? look into details for pump motor first as you may be hooking a wrong starter.

If this started was supplied along with pump motor and has been working then there is sure some bearing damage in the pump motor or some other kind of friction has developed which needs more initial current then it supposed to use and may be the cause of trip.

Trip means detection of excess current so just hook a current meter and see the peak current waveform to be sure that pump motor is not bad. After all sometime or other it is going to go bad and you will face this problem so why not today?

Thanks for your valuable suggestions.

Word "Kick start type" is new for me. How can I checked wheter my motor is kick start type or not? I have checked manufacturer data sheet but in that nothing is written about it. Can u help me for that?

Also we have carried out RCM analysis for both pumps and motors but not abnormality observed in it.

On all of the soft start controllers I have used in the past, some have options to provide a "kick Start' current to the motor to begin the rotation and then drops off as the motor begins to rotate and then flips into the normal slow start. I used Allen Bradley that all had this option. You had to order this feature on the soft start. You had to know your application to select this option. If it was operating a fan, you would not need this option. I believe this is what the other poster meant by Kick Start.

Thanks for the knowledge shering. Here motors are used in pumphouse for pump application in water system. Also present soft starter is not electronic soft starter it is FCMA soft starter.

make sure pumps are not rotating backward at the instance of starting, (lack of check valve or defect in check).

I'm in the same camp as several others here. Of course I wonder about your set-up parameters and wonder did you do your leg work already and consult your motor and pump reps?...I'm guessing no. as it was pointed out correctly a "soft start" is just that.its designed to start under light loads if you ask it to do more work than its designed for it will continually trip

For those unfamiliar with this, 'FCMA' is a rebirth of a very old technology. FCMA is short for Flux Controlled Magnetic Amplifier, commonly (and formerly) known as a "Mag-Amp" when made by GE and Westinghouse 50 years ago. A company in India has resurrected this ancient technology, long ago abandoned by the likes of GE and Westinghouse as motor starters when SCR based controls became economical (although people still use Mag-Amps for other purposes). In a nutshell, the concept is to use a saturable reactor (copper would around a steel core) as a way to control the flux in the motor circuit.

Please check the total GD2 (motor GD2 + Load GD2) and calculate the acceleration time at 100% Voltage as well as at 80% voltage. From this use can calculate the transition time.

In one of my earlier projects, we were facing a similar problem, due to a small typographical error of incorrect entry of motor GD2, in the spec given to the FCMA manufacturer.

Dear All, thanks for your valuable suggestions. I got some clues and will work on that for the problem rectification.

Understood your problem ,

Do you have any relay on Soft starter ???

This may be due to long starting time ... either you have to reduce the starting time or you have to increase the setting in relay for more starting time.

For second question :

this may be due to the mal function of timers ...or some loos contacts of auxiliary contactors ....

Reddy