GS4 Variable Frequency Drive (VFD) Auto-Tuning Tutorial at AutomationDirect

When you are running a GS4 Drive in Sensorless Vector mode, it’s a really good idea to run the Drive’s built-in Auto Tune on the connected motor so you get the absolute best performance out of your GS4 drive which at the end of the day, saves you money in operating cost. Auto tune measures the actual stator resistance and no load current and puts them in these parameters – if you have motor 1 auto tune parameters selected. There is second set of auto tune parameters where you can save and use data for a second motor. You could enter them manually from the vendors datasheet if you want to, but auto tune is so quick and easy, it’s best to let the drive measure what it actually sees. Before starting auto-Tune, disconnect the motor from any load. Normally, you would even remove the pulley, I am going to leave it on for this demo so it’s easier for you to see the motor spinning. If you can’t separate the motor from the load, then check out the Static Auto tune section later in this video. Make sure the drive and motor are wired correctly and work as expected. Looks good. Double check that these parameters are set to the numbers shown on the motor face plate. Motor Output Voltage – yep. Rated Current – Yep. Base Frequency – yep. Rate RPM – yep. Horse power – yep. And Number of poles … Great! We disconnected the load, Verified the Wiring, and check the parameters. One more thing – this is important – please make sure you have an e-stop connected. You are about to tell the drive to run the motor and you need a way to shut it down if things don’t go as expected. The best way to do that is to use the Drive’s built in STO function. Click on this information banner to see a short video on how to do that. I have this drive setup to run when I press the keypad button, when it is in local mode so … To start the auto tune process, just set parameter 0.05 to a 1, then press ENTER, then press RUN …in a few seconds the shaft will start spinning and you will see a flashing auto tune message. If you have to stop the motor during the process, you will get an error. Just reset the error and start over again. You can view error status in the usual error parameters …. Looks like Auto Tune has finished. Let’s go see what it measured. Parameter 0.06 is the stator resistance – looks reasonable. And parameter 0.07 is the no load current - which is what the nameplate says it should be. Perfect. Your drive is now auto tuned and ready to operate at its best possible efficiency. If you couldn’t decouple the motor from its load, then you can still do a static auto tune. It just measures the stator resistance. You have to enter the No Load current from the motors name plate or data sheet before you run the test. And to run the static test, just enter a 2 in parameter 0.05 instead of the 1 we did a minute ago. All the other steps are just like we did a minute ago. Since the autotuned results are just parameters, if you reset the drive parameters to factory default, the auto tune parameters will be reset. So be sure to re-tune the drive after you do a factory reset of the drive parameters. Click here for more information on the GS4 Drive. Click here to learn about all of AutomationDirect’s free support options. And click here to subscribe to AutomationDirect’s YouTube Channel so you will be notified when we publish new videos.