Ask the experts: PowerXL DM1 micro VFD

Josh Kingsley:
We made the PowerXL DM1 easy to operate from anywhere. This flexible device is perfect for facilities that rely on browser-based controls and facilities that prefer storing files on local hard drives. It can be set up with an Ethernet cable and connect via Bluetooth for direct IOT connectivity, or it can be controlled, programmed, and commissioned with Eaton's Power Xpert inControl software. Both methods are safe and secure and neither requires proprietary cables.

Josh Kingsley:
We call the DM1 the little juggernaut, and that's because it offers a full spectrum of connectivity options and wide ranging control flexibility. All of these built in to a single small device. So, as you can see, Eaton's PowerXL DM1 offers the capabilities that you demand in one easy to operate device. Demand more, good enough. Demand Eaton Variable Frequency Drives.

Josh Kingsley:
Welcome. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, Eaton Nation. I'm Josh Kingsley, your host for All Things Control by Eaton. I want to welcome everybody to a very special Ask the Expert event as we reveal our latest innovation, the PowerXL DM1 Micro Variable Frequency Drive. Now, we're going to be taking a different approach to this Ask the Expert session and that our guests will be using the Microsoft HoloLens to showcase some of DM1's unique features. So, let's meet our presenters for today. First, please say hello to our Product Manager for the PowerXL DM1, Mr. Raj Narayanan.

Raj Narayanan:
Hey, good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening.

Josh Kingsley:
Howdy, Raj, glad to have you on here. And, also sporting the Hololens, as promised, our Global Product Line Manager for Variable Frequency Drives, please welcome Mr. Charles Tahara.

Charles Tahara:
Hey, everybody, thank you very much for joining. Appreciate your time and really looking forward to today.

Josh Kingsley:
All right. Welcome gentlemen. Glad to have you guys on here. So, let's get some housekeeping out of the way. For you guys, our audience, you can ask questions via the comments sections below on LinkedIn or Facebook. And, as an added bonus, you can download a free application note that explains how DM1 helps you achieve permanent magnet synchronous motor control. We're going to show you how to do that at the conclusion of this presentation so make sure that you stick with us all the way to the end.

Josh Kingsley:
This Ask the Expert session is brought to you by the PowerXL DM1 Micro Variable Frequency Drive. Please visit Eaton.com/DM1 to learn more about this new innovation. And once again, that is Eaton.com/DM1 and I think we can jump right in and start to explore this product. I'm already seeing all kinds of questions come up. 

Josh Kingsley:
From our LinkedIn platform, we have a question from Najive. And Najive asks, "What are the overall features and benefits of the DM1 VFD?" Charles, I want to start with you on this one.

Charles Tahara:
Awesome. Appreciate that, Josh. And Najive, thanks for the question. It's actually a fantastic opportunity to use the HoloLens. So, if you guys just give me a second, I'm going to go ahead and get connected here. Pardon me while we switch the stream over. 

All right. Up in front of me, through the HoloLens eyes over here, I have our DM1 frame one pro model. I want to show you guys a couple of things today. 

First and foremost, this is a full-fledged VFD product. It's dual-rated for both constant torque and variable torque. It has a built in brake chopper and a bunch of other features that I'm going to unpack here in just a second. But in order to do that, I'm going to use this handy-dandy tool here. I'm going to blow this up and you can kind of see what the guts of this thing look like. 

Now, most of you probably won't get into this, but I'm going to use this to show some of the features of it.

Charles Tahara:
All DM1 products, both the basic and the pro models, have a couple of features that we've included. First and foremost, you see towards the back there, the line side MOVs. That's what's going to help us with some rudimentary surge protection. 

Right above it you can see the two screws are the MOV and the EMI screws so they are field removable and re-installable. If you're ordering this product, you're not sure which one to stock, but you want to cover all your bases and then you all of a sudden have to disable the EMI for an IT corner grounded system, you can just remove that screw that's in the far left there.

Charles Tahara:
The other thing that's slick about this product in particular is how compact we made it. I'm going to use my handy-dandy little swivel tool here for just a second. See if I can grab it. Unfortunately, I will admit I am a pretty new to this whole HoloLens thing, so just bear with me. 

There it goes. I'm going to dive in here and on the inside, kind of cool about the design of this particular product is we spent a lot of time on the cooling channel for this. It's a very, very, very compact cooling channel pulling off that primary IGBT section and then you can see the fan up there. The fan is actually programmable which is a nice perk. Through the parameters, you can decide whether you want it to be on all the time or if you want to be based on the internal temperature of the drive, or if you want it to be on only at certain times to try to dampen the noise.

Charles Tahara:
There's a lot of flexibility in how you apply this product overall and a lot of the considerations for acoustic noise and other things as well. Pretty slick. 

Now I'm going to switch back to the keypad view here. Another thing that's really nice about how the keypad itself is structured. So, you're going to have your cover over here and I'll reset that later. 

One of the things that's slick about it is how dense and how we were able to pack all the IO in here. On the front side, you can see where the keypad, a remote keypad is going to plug into as well as where your Ethernet base communications are based.

Charles Tahara:
You have your safe torque off terminals underneath the hood as well, and then a whole plethora of IO and relay inputs and outputs. Just overall a really cool, very compact design. 

I can talk about just some of the distinguishing features between the basic and the pro model. The basic unit is without the keypad, without the speed potentiometer, no Ethernet, no STO, but the pro model has this nice keypad that you can see here. It is a full user interface so you can navigate through all the parameter structures, your start stop, changing your reference as well as the speed potentiometer.

Charles Tahara:
And, like I mentioned before underneath the hood, you have your safe torque off, you have your Ethernet based comms and then your keypad connection. So, really, really slick. There's a lot to this design. We're very proud of it. And yeah, it has a ton of, a whole host of features. So, appreciate the question Najive. And Josh, I'm turning it back to you here.

Josh Kingsley:
Charles, that's awesome. That's a ton of built-in features. I personally didn't realize how fully loaded this little device really was, and I completely understand why we're calling it the little juggernaut.

Charles Tahara:
I do actually have one more point to chime in, Josh, if that's okay.

Josh Kingsley:
Yeah, for sure. Go for it.

Charles Tahara:
It also features a lot from the partner restructure standpoint. You're allowed to basically order what you need. So, if you want to go for that basic model without an EMI filter, because you're really trying to drive all the costs out of the device. We have part numbers set up for that. Those are also going to be stocked in our warehouse. 

If you want kind of the full-fledged thing for your warehouse stock, because you're trying to make sure you can cover whatever it is that life throws at you. And, you want those MRO opportunities; we do have the full-fledged models and part numbers as well. And ,we even have a regional ordering codes. So, if you have customers that need to false set up for voltage and APAC versus in Europe or in the Americas, we have region codes you can add it to get those defaults pre-set.

Josh Kingsley:
That's awesome, Charles. Got to love all the options that you put together in there. And, it sounds like you really thought through how this product should be put together and put out in front for the market. So, thank you very much and really hope that answered your question, Najive. It is great to see the HoloLens at work as well. 

Josh Kingsley:
Let's get into the next question and I'm going to stay on LinkedIn here. This one's going to come in from Paula. Her question is, "How can DM1 save energy for AC motor control applications?" And Raj, I believe this one is going to be perfect for you.

Raj Narayanan:
Indeed. It is Josh. Hey Paula, nice meeting with you. These i are very energy efficient compared to the other traditional speed control methods such as DC drives. The real energy savings is possible in variable torque applications, such as fans or pumps where the energy consumed increases as the cubic relation to the motor speed and vice versa.

There is a tremendous opportunity to save energy when these motors run at lower speeds. And, of course apart from the energy savings, our PowerXL Drives, including these DM1s, come with a standard energy optimization algorithm called active energy control. Users could experience up to 10% additional energy savings compared to the other traditional VFDs in the market.

Josh Kingsley:
10% energy savings? Did I hear that correctly?

Raj Narayanan:
Yes, Josh. Up to 10% more. And, not only that, these drives come with a real time clock and an energy savings calculator built in. So, the users can look anytime at how much energy their drives save, and usually the return on investment is between one and two years.

Josh Kingsley:
That's incredible. So, you not only get your savings, but you can actually see them in real time as you're operating your device. That's great. Thank you very much, Raj. And, I really hope that answers your question as well, Paula. 

Josh Kingsley:
I am going to jump over to the Facebook platform for this one. And, this is a good one. "Tell me more about the safety features in the DM1." This one's coming from Harrison on Facebook. Once again, tell me more about the safety features in the DM1.

Charles Tahara:
I can take that one, Josh. And, thanks Harrison for the question. It's pretty exciting. 

The DM1 is designed to ensure that your personnel and your equipment are safe. The first thing I'm going to talk about is the safe torque off feature. It is a globally accepted standard. And, we meet the DM1 to the SIL2 rating. It's going to prevent power from being applied to the motor when a safety interlock, or a light curtain or a safety gate, or some kind of e-stop command is issued to the drive. 

VFDs that don't have that SIL rating and where their machines are required to perform at that level are going to need additional output contactors, and a safety relay. So, in a way, we're basically reducing the system costs while giving you a higher level of safety performance. 

The next thing that I want to talk about is the Bluetooth portion, which typically we don't associate safety and Bluetooth, but it has the ability to connect remotely. When you have an enclosed panel door, or if you've got the drive buried inside of a machine, you can actually connect directly to that device. Now there are layers of protection, so you can avoid any kind of issues or tampering, but you can connect remotely to that device. You don't have to open up that door, throw your arc flash gear on, et cetera.

Josh Kingsley:
That built-in Bluetooth feature is pretty awesome, Charles. But, I do want to make sure that I apologize on behalf of Eaton that all our MRO folks are not going to have to be putting that arc flash suit on again. I know how much everybody loves putting on that heavy PPE gear to get into a panel. And Harrison, I really hope that answers your question. These questions are coming in fast and furious. But, the producers want me to remind you that we have a free application note available for you.

It is going to cover the topic of permanent magnet, synchronous motor control, and we are going to make this available to you at the end of the presentation. So, please do stick with us. 

Josh Kingsley:
Let's get to the next question. This next one is going to come from LinkedIn again, and this one's from Maggie. She wants us to explain IIoT functionality in VFDs and the follow-up to that is how is the industry evolving? Raj, I believe this is going to be a good one for you to talk about.

Raj Narayanan:
That's a great question, Maggie. Thank you very much for being on the call. 

Connectivity, remote monitoring and control are the future trends in  automation. The industrial internet of things is becoming very popular in several applications. We have, not only remote monitoring, but also control and the preventative maintenance, everything making it possible by having the IIoT feature available on our VFDs. So yes,it is a great thing. When we are looking at the future and we are gearing up our product to meet the future trends.

Josh Kingsley:
A follow up question from me. We know about IIoT but does this DM1 also have IOT capabilities, Raj?

Raj Narayanan:
Yes. DM1s are built in with the IOT capabilities where you can exchange and  push the information to the Cloud wherein the customers can monitor not only the health of the VFDs, but also of the connected equipment.

Josh Kingsley:
That's great. Well, that would definitely give me peace of mind and I hope that all of our viewers are feeling the same. 

Josh Kingsley:
Let's get to another question. And, this one is another two-parter. I'm going to pull this from Facebook from Mario. The first half of this question is why are short circuit current ratings important? Then, the second half of this is what are the short circuit current protection ratings of a DM1? Charles, you talked about safety earlier. So, I think we can have you expand upon that for this one.

Charles Tahara:
Absolutely, Josh. Happy to and thank you for the question, Mario. 

Typically in a plant, you'll have a VFD that's taking its line side feed from a large transformer. If there's an issue in the power circuit, you may have several thousand amps of a short circuit power flow through that short circuit area, which could create an event. If the circuit is left unprotected, that could result in an arc flash, or explosion, or a fire. People can get hurt in some situations, equipment can get damaged. So, it's just bad news all the way around. 

The nice thing about the DM1 in particular, even amongst his peers, is that it can deliver very, very high levels of short circuit protection, but it also can do so not only with fuses. So, it delivers short circuit ratings or SCCR ratings, not only with fuses, but also with molded case circuit breakers, Type E manual motor protectors and miniature circuit breakers all under the new UL standard. With breakers and fuses, we can even hit levels like a 100 kA.

Josh Kingsley:
Okay. So wait. You talked about the new UL standard. And, by that I assume you're meeting the 61800-5-1. Are you telling me that one, you're achieving this and two, the DM1 is the first VFD to do that?

Charles Tahara:
Yes, exactly. We're the first to have an offering out there, not only with the fuses, but offering those resettable forms of circuit protection.

Josh Kingsley:
All right. That's great. And that's a great accomplishment, really happy that you are able to get that into the DM1 and the implication that this little guy can ultimately help customers reduce their overall costs. So, this is awesome. I like it. I know our audience likes it and I hope that answers your question, Mario.

Charles Tahara:
Thanks, Mario.

Josh Kingsley:
Let's see what is next? We're going to go with Kyle on LinkedIn. "Is this product available in a high-frequency model and by high-frequency we mean 800 Hertz or higher?" Raj I'll let you feel this one.

Raj Narayanan:
We have this product available up to 400 Hertz at this point, and we have it continuously evolving. This drive can control motors at this point up to 400 Hertz.

Josh Kingsley:
Okay, perfect. 

Josh Kingsley:
So, let's go with our next question. This one is also coming from LinkedIn. It looks like that's where we're getting most of our audience today. Mike on LinkedIn has a question, "How hardened is the unit to capacitors switching transients?"

Charles Tahara:
I can jump in here, but just to be clear on the type of transients that we're talking about. If we're talking about line side transients, we do have a front end MOVs on the line side. So, you'll see a little bit of that kind of protection. If you're in an area where you're getting a lot of storms or circuit events, we would still recommend having an external commercial grade surge protective device, protecting your equipment overall. But, this can withstand a limited amount of an event. 

Now, if you're talking about reflective wave transients going from the DC bus back on the line, this like any other VFD is going to be producing those harmonics. So, I would say, definitely look at the design of your situation, what the overall VFD driven loads are for the facility you're in or specifically coming from that downstream transformer. 

And, if you need support figuring out what your harmonics look like at the point of common coupling for your application, we have a team of engineering service folks who can help with that site assessment as well.

Josh Kingsley:
Perfect. So, I'm going to jump over to Facebook for this one. Russell on Facebook has a question, "Thinking of our 600 Vac systems in Canada, does the DM1 have 660 Vac max or better?" Charles tell me about that.

Charles Tahara:
I can jump in for that one as well. So yes, we actually are very fortunate that we are bringing to launch today, the full offering of the DM1. We do have a 600-volt or 575 volt rated units. It does have a north end of I think about 660 volts. So, Russell definitely meeting that sweet spot that you're talking about for a line voltage in Canada. 

But, we also offer a 480 three phase 230 three phase. And, then we also jump into our single-phase ratings, 120 volt single phase, which is more of like your domestic power rating. Or 230 volt single phase, if you're looking at light commercial. We crossed just about all of the voltages that you would see for this type of application.

Josh Kingsley:
A quick up from Russell on Facebook, "During the introduction, it talked about an SCCR rating of 65 kA and I think we just want a little clarity, is that at 480 or 600 Vac?" Charles, you seem to be the safety guy, so let's go with you on that.

Charles Tahara:
Yes, I'll answer that one as well. So, actually for 480 volt or 230 volt, which fuses or molded case breakers, we can do up to a 100 kA with that. But, the 65 kA is a reference to what we can do with our Type E manual motor protectors, which are more of that IEC form factor MMP that we're used to seeing. 

Now, once you get into the 600 volt side of the ratings, I believe we do drop the breaker ratings down from a 100 kA to 65 kA and just to plug as well. I mean, these have been tested and qualified with our power defense, which is the next generation of molded case circuit breakers. So, a really good comprehensive set of ratings there.

Josh Kingsley:
All right. Perfect. Thank you, Charles. 

Josh Kingsley:
I'm going to stay on Facebook here since we have some new questions coming in. Raj, I'm going to ask you two questions really quick from Rob on Facebook. So, the first question is, "Can you do any PLC type of logic?" Let's do that one and then I'll have a follow-up.

Raj Narayanan:
In these DM1s, we can do custom text base this logic. It's still not a lot of logic, but no, we can do for large opportunities. If someone wants logic built-in we can help with a text-based logic in the near future, we can work on logic opportunities, but for customer applied logic or in a customer built logic, we are not ready yet, but currently we can support the larger opportunities with our logic engine text-based programming and ship it.

Josh Kingsley:
Okay. The next question is also from Rob on Facebook, "Any type of input filtering included, and if so, what percentage?"

Raj Narayanan:
We have built in EMC filters available. That is an option - DM1 and DM1 pro with and without the EMC filters. It is the industrial standard and  you can order these drives with built-in EMC filters. That option is available.

Charles Tahara:
I just want to chime in there real quick, Josh, if I can. The other component too, is going to be the line side filtering from a harmonic standpoint. This does not feature a built in DC choke. So, if you're concerned again about the line side harmonics, we do have an offering of a line and load side reactors that you can purchase with the DM1. 

And, we offer both three and 5% rated line reactors, AC reactors, depending on your application. If you need support figuring out what the right combination is of products, we can absolutely help you, whether it's through our technical resource center or through our team of product line application engineers. 

Thanks for the question, Rob.