Hi all, just wondering if anybody knows if this unit could be used instead of a Variac and if so how to connect it.

[attachment=3343]

http://ab.rockwellautomation.com/Drives/PowerFlex-4

Thanks

John

Quote from King Fred on February 21st, 2013, 03:27 PM

Hi all, just wondering if anybody knows if this unit could be used instead of a Variac and if so how to connect it.



http://ab.rockwellautomation.com/Drives/PowerFlex-4

Thanks

John

John,
          The answer is no not directily. This type of "drive" is made for an inductive load motor. It produces a PWM controlled square wave voltage that the motor would convert into a current sine wave.
          However, if the output was filtered you could then run it through an isolation transformer and approximate a variac's output. The nice thing about this would be the frequency control that a variac can't do. But designing the filter properly would not be an easy task especially if a wide frequency range is desired.