IronHorse ACN NEMA 4X VFD Control with a Potentiometer from AutomationDirect

Let’s control the motor speed with a potentiometer, and forward and reverse via digital inputs. I wired the potentiometer like this and the digital inputs with the normally open switches like this because those are the default uses of those digital inputs and we won’t have to change those parameters. Let’s factory reset the drive so you know exactly where I am starting from. Right arrow once to the drive parameters … scroll to parameter 93 … change it to a 1 … select that and accept it. Escape back to top level display. The drives parameters are now all reset to default values. The drive defaults to keypad entry for frequency control, so let’s up arrow to the frequency control and change that to a 2 which tells the drive to use analog input voltage 1 for frequency control. Enter to select, enter to accept. While we are here, lets scroll down to the acceleration parameter. We see its 20 seconds – that a long time for a short video, so let’s change him to something more reasonable like 4 seconds. Enter to select, enter to accept. And I’ll scroll up to the deceleration parameter and set him to 4 seconds too – again just to expedite the video. Enter to select, enter to accept. Escape back to the top level. And sure enough, if I rotate the potentiometer the frequency command changes. Keep in mind – that’s just the frequency command or some folks call it the frequency reference. The motor won’t spin up to that speed until we enable it. Switch forward on. The display automatically changes to show us the actual frequency while the motor is running. Turn that off and switch to reverse and the motor spins in the other direction. That’s all there is to it! By the way, if you prefer to use momentary push buttons for drive control instead of the maintained toggle switches we used here, then check out the three-wire drive control video where you will learn how to do that. Meanwhile ... click here to learn more about the ACN Family of variable frequency drives. Click here to learn about AutomationDirect’s free award winning support options and click here to subscribe to our YouTube channel so you will be notified when we publish new videos.