JJ Loughran where called to a Co. Antrim food manufacturing facility to assess the feasibility of fitting VSD’s to their HVAC Supply Air Handling units.

The facility didn’t want to disturb or diminish the standard of ventilation at the factory but where aware that at certain times of the week they were able to reduce the output of the system by reducing the speed of the motors as many of the line operatives shift was over and mainly wash down was in progress.

The aim was to reduce energy by fitting VSD’s to the six main air handling units that included 1*90Kw, 1 *18.5Kw and 4*11.0Kw.

All where originally Star Delta operated and there was no room within the existing control panel enclosures to get the drives fitted.

JJ Loughran working along with Vacon chose the IP55 Vacon Flow drive that allowed JJ Loughran engineers to fit the VSD’s outside the control panels as needed. Allowing for quick fitting and changeover and minimised installation costs to the customer.  For the 90Kw drive, the IP21 version was chosen and built into a control panel by JJ Loughrans’s control panel division.

The customer was particularly impressed with the built in time clock that allowed the drive to adjust its frequency automatically at precisely the required times during each day, Monday to Sunday. Self adjusting internal time clock for daylight savings allows the drive to be self-sufficient from time of set up.

The Vacon operating programme was written by JJ Loughran engineers and downloaded into each of the drives that all had separate requirements.

List of drives

Quantity 1: Vacon 0100-3L-0170-5-FLOW – 90.0 Kw

Quantity 1: Vacon 0100-3L-0038-5-FLOW – 18.5Kw

Quantity 4: Vacon 0100-3L-0023-5-FLOW – 11.0Kw 

Complete installation of the five smaller drives was carried out over a two day period and because of the preliminary works carried out by JJ Loughran engineers, no changeover of any fan motor to VSD, exceeded 30 minutes downtime of the system. 

The 90kw control panel was fitted, connected and commissioned within a 2 hour period.