The JJ Loughran engineering team were recently contracted by a customer to replace a defective bull electric DC motor and control techniques DC motor controller with a new Danfoss cabinet-built 460 Amp drive solution and an ABB AC designed 262.3KW, 2000rpm 200 Square frame motor complete with force ventilation.

The current application was unique, the existing Bull DC motor was used to run a large centrifugal fan which was used to cool toughen glass leaving EFCO Glass temperature Furnace.

It was diagnosed that the DC motor was near end of life with the communicator been reskimmed several times and the overall unit being overhauled on numerous instances. There was also significant and costly maintenance required with the upkeep and replacement of carbon brushes to also take into consideration. At this stage JJ Loughran advised the customer of an alternative replacement that would have not only a longer life but also a reduced maintenance commitment.

J J Loughran Engineers working in conjunction with ABB’s technical team selected the following square frame motor design. We utilised this design over a traditional squirrel cage design, to ensure customer modifications onsite where kept to a minimum. As a standard AC squirrel cage design would be a much larger 355 Frame unit rather than a 200 frame which the equivalent ABB Square frame utilised.