Delta S1 inverter

[Stan Semeniuk]

Hi all,
I'm looking for a little info about this inverter. There is a min, max knob on it that I'm trying to figure out what the heck it does. thanks for any help from an electrically inept Boilermaker.

 

[Roger Chandler]

You should be able to google Delta Electronic S1 inverter and it will take you to Delta's website, where you can read or download the manual for the S1 inverter. It has been used on most Powermatic and Jet lathes for the last 15 years. There are more advanced inverters out there now from Delta Electronics, but the S1 has been a workhorse when it comes to lathe inverters.

 

[Bill Boehme]

Hi all,
I'm looking for a little info about this inverter. There is a min, max knob on it that I'm trying to figure out what the heck it does. thanks for any help from an electrically inept Boilermaker.

I'm not an electrically inept boilermaker (whatever that might be), but here is a link to the download for the Delta VFD-S1 series inverters. The knob is the speed control. If you bought a lathe that uses the Delta S1 then most of the panel controls including that one are disabled by a software switch because the lathe uses external controls. If you bought the inverter by itself then the software switch is set to use the panel controls unless you decide to change it.

 

[Stan Semeniuk]

Thank you gentlemen.

 

[Doug Rasmussen]

I have an S1 inverter that came off a Grizzly lathe. Parameters were factory set to use an external control panel with a speed control knob. That setting is protected by a secret password that I have no way of discovering. , even Grizzly tech support doesn't know the password. I suspect all inverter type lathes coming from factories have password protection on parameters.

Not really a big issue, it's still very usable after I set up an external control panel with the speed control knob. The password protected setting of most consequence is the speed control which limits output to 120 hz. That's basically a safety factor to prevent lathe operators from unsafe over speeding the spindle by limiting rpm's to double the motor's name plate speed..

 

[Bill Boehme]

I have an S1 inverter that came off a Grizzly lathe. Parameters were factory set to use an external control panel with a speed control knob. That setting is protected by a secret password that I have no way of discovering. , even Grizzly tech support doesn't know the password. I suspect all inverter type lathes coming from factories have password protection on parameters.

Not really a big issue, it's still very usable after I set up an external control panel with the speed control knob. The password protected setting of most consequence is the speed control which limits output to 120 hz. That's basically a safety factor to prevent lathe operators from unsafe over speeding the spindle by limiting rpm's to double the motor's name plate speed..

I don't know about that inverter, but some if not most enable you to do a hard reset that completely resets everything to default values including the password if one has been set. Of course, that isn't very helpful if what you really want is to discover hidden parameters for your lathe motor.

In the case of the 200% base RPM limit, it is more to protect the motor. Inverter rated motors have "never exceed" ratings and MAX RPM is one of them. Of course, operator safety is also essential and in some situations may preempt electrical and mechanical limits. For example, I have a 3 HP Baldor inverter motor with a maximum RPM of 6000. Common sense tells me no piece of wood will stay in one piece for very long at that speed. That also exceeds the maximum RPM of most pulleys as well as the maximum operating parameters of most drive belts.

I'm pleased that I have full control of all the inverter settings on my Robust AB. Of course for most woodturners it's probably best to not even entertain the thought of messing with these settings because there's lots of opportunities to screw things up and very little chance of improving anything.

 

[Stan Semeniuk]

Bill, you summed it up for me in your last sentence. It was more just my curiosity getting the better of me .

 

[Mike Johnson]

If you visit another website that is more directed towards VFD's and motor controllers you might find a person that knows the factory default password for the controller you have. You could also try a few YouTube videos, on occasion they can provide tidbits of information not readily available to the minions. If you do a Google search you might try looking for a pdf file that document factory setup and troubleshooting. Google used to be a good resource but over the years they have added too many filters and algorithms that bury the documents you are actually wanting. You are now forced to search through multiple pages before you find the documents that have what you are looking for. You need to be very specific with your search phrase to get a good resulting list of documents to search through.

 

[Doug Rasmussen]

I don't know about that inverter, but some if not most enable you to do a hard reset that completely resets everything to default values including the password if one has been set. Of course, that isn't very helpful if what you really want is to discover hidden parameters for your lathe motor.

In the case of the 200% base RPM limit, it is more to protect the motor. Inverter rated motors have "never exceed" ratings and MAX RPM is one of them. Of course, operator safety is also essential and in some situations may preempt electrical and mechanical limits. For example, I have a 3 HP Baldor inverter motor with a maximum RPM of 6000. Common sense tells me no piece of wood will stay in one piece for very long at that speed. That also exceeds the maximum RPM of most pulleys as well as the maximum operating parameters of most drive belts.

I'm pleased that I have full control of all the inverter settings on my Robust AB. Of course for most woodturners it's probably best to not even entertain the thought of messing with these settings because there's lots of opportunities to screw things up and very little chance of improving anything.

The hard reset doesn't work on my S1 because the password protection prevents executing that function. As I recall the online documentation said the only way to reset to default values was to hook the inverter up to a PC using a special cable (or use the password to unlock the unit).

It's not clear to me whether the Grizzly lathes being rpm limited is for motor protection or operator safety, maybe both reasons. From my conversations with Grizzly tech support it's apparent they know next to nothing about inverter drives. I ended up with this one from a lathe still under warranty because a problem was misdiagnosed as a bad VFD. For problems with machines under warranty they simply replace everything rather than wasting time finding what the real problem is. In this case the problem was dust on the spindle mounted rpm detector.

I agree with your last point about it being nice having full access to parameters, but if I was selling machines I wouldn't give users that access for liability reasons.

 

[Mike Johnson]

The sad part is most technical service providers these days have morphed into call centers with basic scripts that are repeated to the client that has a problem, many of these people providing this "service" have very little field knowledge or education in the fields they are servicing. Not having access to programming and reset codes equates to selling a new product to replace the old one. Having the correct communication cable and software to communicate to some of these controllers is another cost incurred if the product does not allow changes via the keypad interface. Every new version that comes to market usually requires a different cable and different software interface. You can find some of these older products and accessories on EBAY if you keep an eye on the site each week, on some of our older drives we still have in service this has been our only option for locating spare HIMM's and cards for old obsolete drives.

 

[Bill Boehme]

Older inverters like the Delta S1 probably use a RS-422 bus to talk to other devices (computer for example). Later devices used Mod-bus or probably something newer since I retired.

Mike, if you were buying an off the shelf replacement inverter then it wouldn't have a password set because all of the parameters are specific to the application. If the inverter manufacturer were doing a production run for a machine manufacturer or system integrator then I could see where they might perform the programming service for them.

Tech support sort of depends on who you are. If the customer is a big part of the inverter manufacturer's bottom line then they will probably send out a whole team of field engineers sometimes even permanently assigned at the customers facility. If you're the low man on the totem pole then you might get somebody reading the answers to FAQ's to you.

 

[Mike Johnson]

Bill,

I work for the largest privately owned corporation in the United States, the only way any factory is going to send out a team of field engineers is if they have a purchase order and you are paying for travel expenses, per diem fees and hourly rates. You may have got that kind of service back in the day, but those days are long gone along with margins that allowed companies to provide superior service and support.

 

[Dwight R Rutherford]

I have a copy of the original factory (Delta) codes when shipped to Jet. Also have the Jet programming codes for the S-1 for Jet’s 1642. Included is the unlock code that allowes one to program the unit. PM me if interested.

 

[Mark Jundanian]

So apropos of nothing really, what is the difference between the VFD controller on the Powermatic and the DVR system on Nova lathes?

 

[Bill Boehme]

So apropos of nothing really, what is the difference between the VFD controller on the Powermatic and the DVR system on Nova lathes?

Actually, they have absolutely nothing in common.

The Delta inverter works by synthesizing an approximation to three phase AC power at some desired frequency to drive a three phase AC induction motor.

The Nova uses a stepper motor. A stepper motor can't run on it's own. It needs a microprocessor telling it to step from one fixed position to the next. The timing between these incremental steps determines how fast the stepper motor runs. Nova Technatool calls these motors Digital Variable Reluctance, but that is just marketing speak for stepper motor. The advantage of stepper motors is low cost because they are a very simple internal design. One disadvantage of the stepper motor is that they require expensive electronics to control the way that they move. A major disadvantage is that they are definite purpose motors so you can't just get an off the shelf replacement for either the motor or the electronics.

 

[Mike Johnson]

If you read through the Delta S1 user manual it has a section that discusses password protection and the parameter that is used for this option. There are also several software programs that can be downloaded from Delta's website but you will need the correct communication cables and correct modem that communicates between the VFD and the computer. You will need to make sure your computer is compatible with the software version you download. You also need a proper power supply to power the external communication modem. eBay has a few of the modems listed that are designed for the Delta communication application.