This article is sponsored by Mitsubishi Electric. In this Voices interview, Control Engineering spoke with Tom Henfling, Product Manager, VFD at Mitsubishi Electric US, Industrial Automation, to learn more about the FR-D800 and the features that helped earn it recognition as a 2026 Control Engineering Product of the Year winner.
Control Engineering: What customer challenges is the FR-D800 designed to solve?
Tom Henfling: Customers often struggle with setup time, network integration and maintenance. The FR-D800 was designed to be easier to choose, easier to use and more environmentally friendly. It simplifies setup and wiring by having a spring-type terminal where you can easily land the control wires for digital inputs, digital outputs, analog inputs and analog outputs. It also has a flip-type cover, so it doesn’t require a lot of tools to get the unit configured. It’s a very simple design as far as commissioning.
With commissioning, we now offer USB-powered setup, meaning that you don’t have to have the drive fully energized to do a parameter configuration. You can simply hook up your computer and use the support tool software, FR Configurator 2, to do some preliminary setup of parameters without the drive being energized.
Another feature is the auto-tuning process for both induction and permanent magnet motors. Auto-tuning allows the drive to essentially take a fingerprint of the motor, understand its characteristics and optimize performance. It’s a routine that is done inherently within the unit. You set up a few parameters, it goes through a routine, and you get that motor data.
The FR-D800 also provides better visibility into system health with built-in diagnostics and predictive maintenance functionality. One of those features is a load characteristics measurement function, which can alert the user if the load becomes abnormal. This would be a good feature, for example, in a fan-type application where you might have air filters that might end up getting clogged over time. When that happens, it will end up creating a higher load. The drive has the intuitive knowledge to understand that the filter is getting clogged and can alert you to an abnormal load condition.
In addition to that load measurement function, the drive has cooling fan, pre-charge circuit, electrolytic DC bus capacitor and power module predictive maintenance capabilities. If the components are getting close to the end of their life, it will provide an alarm or other indication that the component is reaching the end of life. Utilizing this predictive maintenance functionality reduces unexpected downtime and improves overall reliability.
What’s new in the FR-D800 series?
The FR-D800 is a major step forward from the previous product generation. It controls not only induction motors, but also permanent magnet motors, which are becoming more commonplace in the marketplace due to their energy savings benefits.
With the FR-D800, what you’ll notice is that there are really only two different variations. You’re either going to go with the standard serial model or the Ethernet version. If you have Ethernet networks, you choose the Ethernet version. If you have FR-D800s that are not going to be networked or are networked over RS-485, you can utilize the standard model. Those are the two main differences in the two different flavors of FR-D800 that you’ll end up choosing from.
There are also a set of tools and troubleshooting functionality that has been added or improved upon. With the FR-D800 and the support tool software, which is called FR Configurator 2, we have a graphing and trace function where you can get data from the unit while it’s operating, or even after a fault. If there was some type of event where the unit ended up presenting an alarm or fault condition, you’re able to pull that information from the drive and use it for troubleshooting purposes. That’s a huge advantage as far as trying to understand the overall health of the product.
And lastly, energy optimization. We employed a new function called Advanced Optimum Excitation Control, which is a feature within the FR-D800 that is able to maximize the amount of energy savings by calculating the amount of energy that is actually needed to drive the load. The drive will only provide the motor with the energy needed to continue driving the load for that given application. The result is an improved energy savings function.
On top of energy savings, we have CO2 emission reduction monitoring. This function enables you to utilize the drive’s parameters to monitor how much CO2 emission reduction the drive has been achieving over X amount of time. Last but not least, we are manufacturing the FR-D800 with recycled materials. We have recycled resin in the product, which is one of the ways we’re helping our customers reach their sustainability initiatives.
What sets the FR-D800 apart from other VFDs on the market?
What sets us apart is the overall premium Mitsubishi Electric reliability. Mitsubishi Electric’s rigorous design, testing and quality standards are what I think really stand out at the forefront of what we offer, compared to our competitors.
The FR-D800 is among the smallest drives in its class, which offers space savings for enclosures. A smaller footprint means that you can fit more products within a cabinet, or you might be able to downsize the cabinet in which the FR-D800 is going. With the FR-D800, we also offer side-by-side mounting, so they don’t have to be separated by a certain amount of distance in a cabinet and a panel. We’re able to put them side by side, and that reduces the space required for a panel, which means you can reduce the cabinet size, so that’s a big improvement.
We also support modern industrial networks for multiple motor types without the need for additional option cards. Some of our competitors may require special option cards to be added to their product in order to support special types of motors or special types of networks. If they want to be able to install a product into a particular network, they need to insert an option card into that product in order for it to be able to work on that network platform.
In the end, I would say that what sets us apart is overall performance, flexibility and ease of use together in one product.
What types of applications are the best fit for the FR-D800?
The FR-D800 is suitable for a wide range of general applications. It can be used in both constant torque and variable torque applications, which are the two major types of applications that you’ll find with a VFD. Simple applications such as conveyors, mixers, compressors, fans, blowers and pumps are where the FR-D800 is perfectly suited. It is also suited for more advanced applications such as commercial washing machines, small hoists and perhaps even CNC spindle applications, where CNCs traditionally are going to operate at higher frequencies. Hoisting can be a little bit more of a challenge, and commercial washing machines certainly are known to be one of the more demanding applications, and we are certainly suited for that.
To piggyback on the overall applications, what makes us more suitable is the fact that all of the FR-D800s that we are marketing in the Americas utilize conformal-coated printed circuit boards. That means the circuit boards inside the FR-D800 have a special spray coating on them that adds additional protection. It allows the drive to be able to withstand some of the rigors and challenges of various environments that might be more corrosive or contaminated.
Why should customers choose Mitsubishi Electric as their VFD supplier?
There are three words that come to mind: quality, performance and compatibility. Mitsubishi Electric has built a strong reputation around reliability and long-term value. One of the key things that we have is the design and manufacture of our own core technologies, which helps us to prioritize the quality. Not only is the product Mitsubishi Electric-built in Mitsubishi Electric factories, but some of the components that we utilize inside the VFD are Mitsubishi components as well.
Two notable examples are the IGBT (Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistor) and IPM (Intelligent Power Module), which are the primary components internal to the VFD that are essentially what VFDs are built around. That’s very exciting.
Customers will benefit from long life cycle support, meaning that we support our products beyond 10 years after we discontinue a product. There is also global compliance to consider. We know that Mitsubishi Electric, being a global organization, is selling products in Asia, Europe and all over the Americas, so we want to make sure that when we’re providing a product, we’re able to integrate a product here in the Americas, and the product can end up getting shipped globally. OEM equipment could be shipped over to Europe, for example, and will be compliant with the standards that are prevalent in Europe as well.
And lastly, we are committed to sustainability. Mitsubishi Electric develops innovative technologies that help customers improve energy efficiency, reduce environmental impact and support long-term sustainability goals.
Mitsubishi Electric US, Industrial Automation helps manufacturers, OEMs and system integrators build reliable, future‑ready automation solutions that protect long‑term investment, improve performance and evolve with their business by combining proven automation with digital platforms, data and AI to solve complex operational and societal challenges.
To learn more about the FR-D800 Series VFD, please visit at us.mitsubishielectric.com/fr-d800.
If you are interested in talking through your current challenges or system needs with an automation engineer, contact us through our website at us.mitsubishielectric.com/contactsales.
