Comparison: The Advantages of Purchasing a VFD from Power Electronics for your Overhead Crane

Durability: Made for Overhead Cranes

We build our VFDs and control panels to exceed manufacturing expectations.

Unlike other drives, the core structure uses steel construction instead of plastic, which lasts longer against shock and vibrations, increasing the life and reliability of our drives. Plastic-cased variable speed drives with plastic mounting internal parts are generally made for installation on or in stationary or non-moving equipment or infrequent movement. Overhead traveling cranes have many abrupt movements all day long and sometimes for multiple daily shifts. Multi-purpose drives are not the answer. Heavy-duty shock-designed drives are your answer.

Additionally, electrically an overhead crane will see many more start-stop processes during its lifetime. These are part and parcel of overhead crane use. Daily non-stop movements back and forth and up and down. These movements, sometimes in quick reverse, will cause higher currents and increased wear on contacts and other parts. This causes higher than average currents in the equipment. 

Off-the-shelf generic drives and parts do not handle these conditions well. For example, a drive used for fan use will start up only once, see an initial ramp-up of current, and then simply run with very small starting and running currents. On a crane that is used heavy-duty and very quickly all day long, the average currents would be higher. [Additionally, the heating of the electronic devices will be much greater, and the life expectancy of the drives and other equipment will be reduced.

Future-Proof: Upgrade Path Philosophy

We also engineer and build our drives with a long-term mindset that will allow your company to keep up with the upgrades to come. This is our Upgrade Path Philosophy (see above). We engineer all our equipment for quick and easy upgrades or future replacements in the field. This allows for standardized equipment sizing, electrical connections, and software settings between drive models, so that past and present products are subsets of future drive models.

Along with this, our variable speed drives exceed the expectations of the current market in several aspects, including temperature ratings, that ensure a higher quality product that is sure to last for your business needs.

Reliability: Temperature & Current Rating

Temperature rating and current handling capacity are key to your installation of variable speed drives for your EOT crane or hoist.

The temperature ratings are as follows: 

• PE Standard Ambient: 14°F to +140°F (-10°C to +60°C) – 
• Many non-PE generic equipment non-crane rated drives can only handle approximately 40C. That means that PE drives are 50% better! Reliability increases dramatically when using PE drives.

Also, our drives are made even more reliable because of the ability to handle periodic 300% of max rated current in many cases. That allows higher duty use, cycles, and years of extra life because of better electronic components than non-crane rated. 

Our VFDs are built especially for heavy-duty applications resulting in fewer nuisance trips and higher reliability. And on everyday crane use they will give incredible life, very few issues or trips, long-lasting crane, and pleased crane operators and management!

Our VFDs have an average durability of more than a decade under normal crane and hoist use. Many units have been active for more than 25 years. Lifetime quality and value are one of the main focuses we have in mind when building our equipment, saving you expenditure costs long term. Of course, situations and environments vary, but having the best in your plant will give you the best MTBF available in nearly all cases.