GSoft2: Part 2 - How to use the Scope feature of the GS4 Variable Frequency Drive (VFD)

One of the best features of GSOFT2 is you can view lots of different signals in real time using this scope function. For example, if we select the three phases of the motor windings here, start recording, bring up the keypad which I’ve already configured for remote operation, hit run, and we instantly see what the three motor phases are doing. Let’s reveres the motor direction. Let it run for a second. And stop the motor. And stop the recording. Hit zoom all to see the entire recording. Now we just draw boxes around the data we want to zoom in on. So, if one of your motor windings was goofy, you would instantly see that here. You can even isolate traces by clicking these boxes. Very cool. Of course, you can save and read these recordings and there is even a JPEG button takes a screen shot for you. This value box is showing the value of which ever cursor you are currenting controlling – if I move the dashed cursor I see its current value. If I move the solid cursor I see its current value. The delta is the difference between the two cursors, relative to the one you are controlling. Time works the same way – it’s the time of the cursor you are currently controlling and the delta to the other cursor. And this is the inverse of the time which is really handy when you want to view the frequency of a signal. These are summary charts. You can see all the Digital I/Os at a glance. And these show you at a glance the max, min and average of the channel you are looking at over here. And you can clear the screen and start over. Need to tweak some parameters? No problem – just bring up the parameter menu right here. In a previous video on monitoring temperature using analog inputs, we had to watch the temperature using a digital multimeter and watch the motor spinning to see if it reacted correctly. That was a bit awkward. If we had simply used this scope function, we could have seen the whole thing at a glance! We can see exactly how the temperature changes, when the motor drops frequency how long things took and at what temperature the drive shut the motor down. Awesome. There are tons of things you can monitor so you are really only limited by your imagination when using GSOFT’s Scope Function. Click here to learn more about the GS4 Drive. Click here to learn about AutomationDirect’s free support options. And click here to subscribe to AutomationDirect’s YouTube channel so you’ll be notified when we post new videos!