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VFD Input Current Vs Output Current - Voltage Disturbance
VFD Input Current Vs Output Current - Voltage Disturbance
VFD Input Current Vs Output Current - Voltage Disturbance
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ENGINEERING CALCULATORS
When measuring VFD input current and output current some people become mystified with the
current values read on the input side vs the output side. Often times, the output current will be
higher than the input current!!. This goes against the conventional knowledge that since the
efficiency of the VFD is less than 100%, the output current should be less than the input current.
This article explains the situations surrounding which you can expect to see higher current on the
output side of the VFD compared to input side.
There are couple of basics that we need to understand before proceeding:
1. Motors operate at a lagging power factor (PF). This means motor consume reactive power
(vars). When the motor is connected to electric grid, the grid supplies the motor with
necessary reactive power to operate. This reactive power is used to generate rotating
magnetic field inside the stator of the motor and performs no useful work (watts).
2. When a drive (VFD) is installed, it essentially separates the power system in to three separate
areas:
1. AC Input side-AC to DC Conversion
3. When the motor is connected to VFD (to the inverter output side), the motor is essentially
isolated from the electric grid. This means the necessary reactive power to operate the
motor must come from the drive itself.
4. The reactive power needed to magnetize the motor windings typically does not vary with
speed and is relatively constant value.
5. The real power required to run the motor (torque producing current) however varies with
speed. Lower the torque, lower the current will be.
6. It is the total power in to the drive that must be compared to the power output of the drive
(minus the power lost in the drive operation). Comparing current between input and output is
not a correct comparison.
Input current of the VFD will be the real current that produces useful work or torque.
The total output current (Ioutputvfd) from the drive will be the square root of the sum of squares of
both the real current (Ir) and reactive current (Iq).
The real current (Ir) is supplied by the electric grid and the reactive current (Iq) is supplied by the DC
bus capacitor inside the VFD-See figure. It can be seen from the equations above that the output
current of the VFD can be larger than the input current. For smaller size drives and motors the
difference in current magnitude may not be noticeable, however for larger drives it will be more
pronounced.
Flow of real and reactive current inside a VFD. I_r is real current and I_q is reactive current.
For the geeks, we can calculate output current from VFD to a reasonable accuracy if we know the
motor power factor and the load torque or KW.
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