With manufacturing orders in the U.S. rising throughout the last half of 2003, and the economy showing indicatorsof a new cycle of growth, demand for all types of manufactured goods is following suit. Processors forced tomothball production areas or lines to weather the recent downdraft now will find themselves needing to retrofitexisting processes, to improve throughput. They also will need to re-activate equipment that has waited in standbymode.
With manufacturing orders in the U.S. rising throughout the last half of 2003, and the economy showing indicatorsof a new cycle of growth, demand for all types of manufactured goods is following suit. Processors forced tomothball production areas or lines to weather the recent downdraft now will find themselves needing to retrofitexisting processes, to improve throughput. They also will need to re-activate equipment that has waited in standbymode.As many plant engineers know, there is a penalty to electrical equipment, if it is mothballed for long. Whetherstored as spare parts, or taken offline as part of a production pullback strategy, electrical products such as motordrives need to be maintained and activated periodically. This enables the system to provide optimum performancewhen brought back online. (Note: a converter is the front portion of a drive that converts AC line current to DCcurrent.)Here’s a guide to that process. The particulars mentioned below apply to ABB’s ACS600 Single Drive andMultidrive units– but the same guidelines apply generally to all converters.
(5 page pdf)
