Centroid Community CNC Support Forum

I have a 10hp motor I need to use a vfd on. How do I determine which is the best controller for my motor

If you will be connecting to 220-240V single phase, you will probably find the choice is rather limited. Most single phase industrial drives stop at about 4kW (5.5hp). If you don't object to Chinesium products, you have a wider choice. However, if you are a hobby user, is it likely you will ever run near the 10hp limit?

Muzzer wrote: ↑Sun May 11, 2025 11:35 am If you will be connecting to 220-240V single phase, you will probably find the choice is rather limited. Most single phase industrial drives stop at about 4kW (5.5hp). If you don't object to Chinesium products, you have a wider choice. However, if you are a hobby user, is it likely you will ever run near the 10hp limit?

This is a 3 phase machine

Is the motor manufacturer still around? If so give them a call, I just used the one my motor manufacturer/agent recommended.

A 7.5kW would be somewhere near but the most suitable depends on what input/output/control functions you want and to link into the controller,how much cabinet space etc. As an example I used a Techtop in mine, you can see the highlight text here for what may suit yours:
These are a generic drive and if you search you'll find lots of manufacturers sell the same drive (you can tell by the buttons etc being the same) with their own branding. 5 mins from mounting to running, so easy to configure and runs well. You can pay more, or less, take your choice. Japanese like Yaskawa are high end, unbranded stuff from Aliexpress at the bottom. I just chose mine as a midrange, 2yr warranty and the dealer is an hour from my place if any problems.

Just do yourself a favour and use shielded cables for all VFD connections including to the motor!

I've never had problems with ABB ACS350 series inverters.

Ive used the typical HY VFD, then started to use the 9100 series VFD to get 3 phase from single phase. More recently Ive used the Yaskawa stuff (GA500) for tricky Permanent Magnet motors and they work really well. That's my goto at present (to get from single phase to 3 phase).

Yaskawa, Hitachi, and Delta are all good brands, while some "store brands" like Automation Direct's DuraPulse have also been good. Check out, for example:

https://www.yaskawa.com/products/drives ... 38Drawings

https://hitachiacdrive.com/hitachi-wj20 ... 200-075lf/

https://www.deltaww.com/en-US/products/ ... rives/ALL/

https://www.automationdirect.com/adc/sh ... /gs23-2010

Ashb82 wrote: ↑Sun May 11, 2025 7:56 pm

Muzzer wrote: ↑Sun May 11, 2025 11:35 am If you will be connecting to 220-240V single phase, you will probably find the choice is rather limited. Most single phase industrial drives stop at about 4kW (5.5hp). If you don't object to Chinesium products, you have a wider choice. However, if you are a hobby user, is it likely you will ever run near the 10hp limit?

This is a 3 phase machine

Yes, I'd sort of figured that out. Are you now telling us that the supply is also 3-phase? Very few of us here are psychic yet. Otherwise, let us know if you find any single phase input / 3 phase output drives above 5hp, Chinese VFDs excepted.

I've got the biggest single phase input Yaskawa GA500 which is 4kW / 5.5hp. Nice drive. Runs my Tree CNC lathe from 240V single phase.

Muzzer wrote: ↑Mon May 12, 2025 5:43 pm

Ashb82 wrote: ↑Sun May 11, 2025 7:56 pm

Muzzer wrote: ↑Sun May 11, 2025 11:35 am If you will be connecting to 220-240V single phase, you will probably find the choice is rather limited. Most single phase industrial drives stop at about 4kW (5.5hp). If you don't object to Chinesium products, you have a wider choice. However, if you are a hobby user, is it likely you will ever run near the 10hp limit?

This is a 3 phase machine

Yes, I'd sort of figured that out. Are you now telling us that the supply is also 3-phase? Very few of us here are psychic yet. Otherwise, let us know if you find any single phase input / 3 phase output drives above 5hp, Chinese VFDs excepted.

I've got the biggest single phase input Yaskawa GA500 which is 4kW / 5.5hp. Nice drive. Runs my Tree CNC lathe from 240V single phase.

I'm using the exact same for max single phase VFD capacity. I used to use the 7100 however had odd issues with them over time.