Add a more user-friendly keypad to your GS10 VFD with AutomationDirect

Durapulse GS10 drives from AutomationDirect.com offer some great features at a surprisingly low cost. The GS4 keypad expands these features and benefits. So, let's take a quick look at some of the awesome features when using this keypad with a GS10 drive. We’ll go into more depth on many of these items in a minute. Just looking at the keypad we can see we have 3 lines of status with easy to understand abbreviations. Here we can see the frequency setpoint, output frequency and bus voltage. These up and down arrows show us we can scroll for more info and these side-to-side arrows let us know we can look at other items in this same line. This line is actually the user display set in Parameter 00.04, but more on that in a minute. We also see we have jog on F1 which will jog the motor as programmed. The other F keys are not used on the GS10. We have local and remote buttons as well as run/stop and reset buttons. By hitting the menu key we see the other functionality of the keypad. This first one takes us to the same programming menus as the built-in keypad but I love that they are all labeled with words rather than just numbers. Escape takes us back to the main menu. Quickly scrolling through we see copy parameters, keypad lock, fault history, and more. Let’s do a quick setup on the GS4 keypad (GS4-KPD) to operate the GS10 and we’ll do most of the programming from the GS4 keypad so you can see how easy it is to use. I’ve reset this drive to factory default and set up my motor parameters. If you’re not familiar with this, please see the quick start video links in the description below. First, for the GS4 keypad to work with our GS10 we need to set up the drive to work with the keypad. The keypad plugs into the comm port on the drive using a standard patch cable. Now, since we’ve done a factory reset on this drive, I know the only thing we need to change is the baud rate in Parameter 9.01 to 19.2k and set protocol in 9.04 to 13. Now hit reset on the keypad and we can see the keypad is communicating with the drive. In this demo, we’ll be using local and remote run and speed commands. These are referred to as command source and frequency source. You can also think of them as hand and auto control. Now, all we need to do is set the start-stop command and speed reference to the keypad. The keypad is operating as a Modbus master on the 485 port, so we’ll set the remote frequency source to RS-485 by setting Parameter 00.20 to 1 and remote command source to RS-485 by setting P00.21 to 2. It’s so much easier to find the parameters and their settings by name rather than by number. So now for the GS4 keypad to run the drive we must be in remote. Luckily the GS4 keypad has local and remote buttons. The keypad shows here we are already in remote, so I can just hit run and drive starts running. If I go to the frequency reference display I can adjust the speed. I love that I can use the right or left arrows to change to a specific digit rather than scrolling to the speed I want. Any numeric parameter can be adjusted that way. Now if we switch to local the built-in keypad will control the drive. Looking at the 3rd line of the default display I mentioned this was the user-defined display. On the keypad, we can use the left and right arrows to scroll to other parameters. This is adjusting the keypad only and not the drive. So this will only be displayed until a power cycle. To make this always come up with another value I need to edit user display Parameter in 0.04. I’ll set it to amps. Again, it is so easy to see the parameter name and option names instead of having to look up the numbers in the manual. So now amps will display on the default screen. I can still scroll to see any other value. Now let’s look at the jog button. We don’t even have to program the drive to use the jog command as long as start-stop are set from RS-485. So this wont interfere with a jog push button or other digital input. The motor will run at jog speed, Parameter 01.22, as long as the button is held. You can even use the forward and reverse on jog as well. Another awesome feature of the GS4 keypad is saving and retrieving programs. I use this a lot since I create so many configurations. You may just want to create a backup of your configuration in case there’s an issue or copy the setup to another drive. The keypad allows you to create custom file names and these can be read from the drive or written to the drive. But be patient, there are a lot of parameters to copy. The keypad lock prevents errant button pushes. Just hold the escape key to unlock. The fault record is so much better than the built-in keypad. You can see all the operating conditions when the fault occurred to help you troubleshoot. Keep in mind the date and time stamp are only accurate if you have set the time and date in the keypad and the keypad is connected when the fault occurred. Finally, you can adjust the display appearance and set the time and date. The GS10 family of drives have an awesome feature set normally reserved for much more expensive drives. We’ve created a step-by-step video tutorial library for this drive that will help you get up and running with those features quickly. And many of the GS20 videos work on the GS10 as well. AutomationDirect is providing the products and support you need to make us your common- sense way to buy industrial controls. If you need more help, please see our tech support options here. To see all GS10 drive videos, click here. Click here to subscribe to our YouTube channel for upcoming products and solutions.