soft starts-the old way

[boardmaker]

We have about 50 old cutler hammer soft starts that became obsolete in 94 or 1995. Anyways they work day in and day out. We recently lost one and we do have a couple more in our stock. It's numbers are series A1 Model # 514-dnod . You still have your main starter contactor and then T1,2,&3 hook into the softstart. In turn, it's T1,2,&3 go to the motor. There is no control or auxilary power source. It only does time and torque. It's very simple, but efficient. Anyways the point of this is to ask if anyone makes anything like that anymore. I can't find anything. The reason I want to stick with the same concept for now is because we only lost 7 minutes changing out that starter. If I have to mess with control voltages and rewiring well that's going to take much longer. When I decide it's time for them to move on I'll probably change everyone so I get a significant price break. Just need a short term solution in case I for some reason run out of stock.

[Camel]

We use motortronics but they have controls. You can't just rebuild that one??

[TimWilborne]

I don't know how it will work with the bolt pattern but the older AB SMC and the STC which are still available require no additional wires

[boardmaker]

Thanks for the replies. Tw I know about the smc-2. If I remember correctly the smc was the previous model. I didn't know they were still around. Camel, we do still get them repaired, but it is getting very expensive. I think we paid 500$ the last time. I just sent one off so I guess I'll find out for sure. When our line goes down it doesn't take much to justify the money but I do like the save when possible.

[gravitar]

Depending on the application and size of the motors, I wonder if you're at a point where an actual VFD would be comparable in price to the soft start! If you're paying $500 for a REPAIR then maybe its time to take a good hard look at AC drives..

[TimWilborne]

On thing to evaluate when deciding between the soft starter and the VFD is how often does the contactor go bad. If you never have to replace the contactor and only the soft starter occasionally I would have trouble justifying the complexity of the VFD compared to the soft starter too. Another thing to think about is the newer soft starters have the contactor built in too. Simpler than a drive but more advanced than the older soft starters

[Camel]

WOW!!! You only pay 500 bucks for a rebuild!!!! What size motors are they on?

[boardmaker]

The soft starts are on 30hp motors. They're not very big maybe 12x12, but you also have to add the contactor. I have been thinking pretty hard about vfd's. Really what it all boils down to is when one cooks, need fast replacement. That is why I'm sticking to finding the same thing I have. During down time, I'll probably replace some of them which will give me a larger stock. Camel, You got me thinking maybe we should start a new thread about where we send our parts to have them rebuilt. Unless it's already in the archives.

[Camel]

Oh..... That explains it. We don't use any softstarts that small. Why do you have a soft start on a 30 horse motor?

[panic mode]

did you check siemens softstarts? Siemens_Sirius_Soft_Starts_cat.pdf

[boardmaker]

Camel, We even have soft starts on 7.5 hp motors. The main issue is burning the belts. A lot of our loads have high inertia. You could also look at it from the equipment point of view. It's a lot easier on a rollcase or chains or whatever if you start over 8 seconds versus 1.5 seconds. I hate to jinx myself, but we rarely have trouble. Knock on wood.