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Arduino Shield

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macjones743 edited this page Apr 27, 2016 · 8 revisions

In order for the Arduino to work with the VFD, a shield had to be custom created. On the VFD, there is a series of inputs for the external control of the VFD. Below is an annotated image of the VFD with pins labeled for what they do.

IMPORTANT: for the external control of the VFD, PLC must be connected to L. Also, setting A001 and A002 on the VFD must be set to 01.

The circuit, as shown below, and linked to in 123dcircuits here, shows the PCB designed to interface between the Arduino and VFD. For the FWD and REV commands, the VFD requires between 5V and 24V to be supplied to EITHER pin 1 or pin 2. If neither pin receives the voltage or if both pins receives the voltage, it tells the VFD to stop. Unfortunately, the 5V supplied by the arduino itself was not enough to actuate a signal. It was found that a cascading transistor circuit, using the 24V supplied by the VFD does work. The 5V or GND signal from the arduino actuates the outlet of the circuit (attached to pins 1 or 2) as HIGH or LOW.

The Magnitude signal from the arduino is a PWM pulse, which, when tested, did not provide a smooth output frequency from the VFD. A simple RC filter was put in place to filter the PWM signal from the arduino so it behaves more like an analog signal. When tested, this filter performed well, and resulted in a smooth frequency signal coming from the VFD.

###Important Pins###

  • Pin 9 - FWD command
  • Pin 10 - REV command
  • Pin 11 - Magnitude (speed) command
  • Pin A0 - Analog read from on-board potentiometer
  • Pin 5 - Encoder signal
  • Pin 6 - Encoder signal

Links for these materials can be found in the Bill of Materials Digikey spreadsheet. NOTE: the transistors on this bill of materials sheet are the wrong transistors. The correct transistors are located on the Digikey_4-23 spreadsheet.

Depending on how the arduino is programmed, this shield can be used for both open loop and close loop control. For open loop control, the potentiometer acts as both direction and speed control. The code for this open loop control is contained in the repository here

###Materials### The following are required for each shield:

  • 2 - Tip42c PNP transistor
  • 2 - Tip41c NPN transistor
  • 3 - 220kOhm resistor
  • 2 - 10kOhm resistor
  • 1 - 10kOhm linear potentiometer
  • 1 - 1microF capacitor

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