Industrial Drive Offers Built-in Fuse Disconnect

At the International Production & Processing Expo (IPPE) in Atlanta, ABB was attracting attention by running a steady stream of water over one of the drives in its booth. The ACS580 UL Type 4X drive can handle extreme rain and washdown situations, along with heat, cold, salt spray, dust, and humidity. This makes it a good fit not only for the poultry farming and processing that IPPE is known for, but any kind of food and beverage applications facing washdown, splashing, and exposure to common sanitizers.

The ACS580 variable-frequency drive has optional integrated lockable UL98 line disconnect and fuses.ABBIt is not uncommon for a drive to be made to work in a washdown area, however. What is uncommon is for that drive to have an optional disconnect that eliminates the need for a separate fuse box, explains Adam Bainbridge, product manager for machinery drives at ABB. “Instead of having to install a drive and then still wire everything back to the cabinet or still wire a separate fuse box right next to it, it’s all built into one,” he explains. “In the past, you might have a drive that could handle a washdown, but then you’ve got to worry about a fuse box that can also handle it. Or you would have to go back to some other control cabinet. This eliminates all of that.”

The optional robustly integrated lockable UL98 line disconnect and fuses allow the variable-frequency drive assembly to maintain 100 kA SCCR and meet the “in line of sight” NEC disconnect requirements to simplify installation and increase safety. The drive is equipped with a standard Bluetooth control panel, facilitating seamless and secure connectivity, commissioning, and monitoring through ABB apps like Drivetune and Drive Composer. The drive also features an optimized DC choke to mitigate harmonics, two option slots for expanding connectivity through fieldbus and additional I/O, and an optional sun shield helps further protect the UV-resistant drive.

Industrial customers like those in the food and beverage industry need drives that can operate in extreme environments, but the fuse disconnect has other important factors, Bainbridge points out. “It makes most sense where you have limited space and your control system is located in one place and your operation is in another spot,” he says. “It’s intended that you can be closer to your application so that if you need to do any maintenance, you can do it right there.”

Fully sealed, the ACS580 also provides corrosion resistance against many common chemicals, gases, high levels of humidity, and salt spray, making it suited to use in indoor and outdoor environments where mud, dust, and soil contact is common. The drive features NSF169 certification for food protection and sanitation.

ABB’s 580 series is its workhorse drive—the one that the company sells the most of for industrial settings, Bainbridge says. “And now to be able to have this in a UL Type 4X version with the disconnect is really what’s driving interest,” he adds. “To my knowledge, no one has that disconnect feature built in.”