The Official Farming Thread...

[Likesaws]

It’s a day for fans I guess lol

Is it a regular metal bladed fan or a fancier one with fins that can move ?

Does it appear to be spinning as fast ?

Have you checked amps on startup, just after it’s up to speed and before you shut it down when it sounds dumb ?

It’s a possibility that it heats up and the bearings in the motor get loose or something and it’s drawing more juice and or not running as fast.

A good electrical tester can tell a lot here. Rule out wiring issues. I spend a few hours troubleshooting this on the dryer today. Turns out the DC side of my VFD is failing and it’s struggling to run the main fan as full speed so I slowed it to 57hz instead of 60 and it’s happy as a clam. For now. I’ve a new VFD on the way. Hopefully this one limps through the 12,000bu in the wet bin so it’s at least not sitting there heating up.

View attachment 472435

Not sure if you’re asking, but it looks like the center feed wire has a loose connection or something going on between the connections and the top of fuse. Use thermal image or a cheep infrared thermometer and look for excessive heat.

 

[jblnut]

Not sure if you’re asking, but it looks like the center feed wire has a loose connection or something going on between the connections and the top of fuse. Use thermal image or a cheep infrared thermometer and look for excessive heat.

Thank you. I wasn’t real clear on that was I

The 15hp motor is nameplated at 38a and it was drawing close to 56a on all three legs. Those are 60a sloooooow blow fuses in there and they didn’t pop. The VFD shutdown with an angry message about overcurrent and under voltage but not before melting some wiring and making a stinky mess in that disconnect.

That box has since been replaced with a 100a rated non fused box. I don’t know why the fused box was there in the first place as the VFD has more protections built in than those fuses provide. Heck I’m not even sure why there is a disconnect there lol.

Anywhooo ….. the DC side of the VFD was only putting out around 275v and should be closer to 400v and is therefore struggling to put out more than 190v AC to the motor. That’s making it cranky and it’s drawing way too many amps. So I lowered the VFD from 60hz to 57hz to spin the motor just a little slower and the volts are holding around 207 and it’s back around 34a again. New VFD will be here in a few days so it can be used for the last week or so of corn drying to make sure it’s gonna work before being idle for 11 months lol.

In other news I got up close and personal with some things on the combine we forgot to address this summer. The feeder stopped working and upon inspection I had a moment of “well crap, I knew I forgot to fix something this summer before we needed it!!”


Old hub vs new hub. Good grief I can’t believe I let that slide by the summer inspection

 

[JimBear]

Is it a regular metal bladed fan or a fancier one with fins that can move ?

Does it appear to be spinning as fast ?

Have you checked amps on startup, just after it’s up to speed and before you shut it down when it sounds dumb ?

It’s a possibility that it heats up and the bearings in the motor get loose or something and it’s drawing more juice and or not running as fast.

Standard fixed blade.

I can’t believe it’s the bearing since once shut down & immediately fired back up it works fine.

A hot motor losing juice “should “ act the same on restart if it was just turned off.

Cousin is an electrician & he is stumped by what I am describing. Hopefully it rains & we can dig deeper.

I guess over time one leg could be petering out a bit & just not cutting clear out.

It doesn’t seem to be losing rpm’s but it will have to be checked with a tach.

A small amount of drop in rpm’s will change the airflow but I would think it would be very noticeable for it to quit moving air.

 

[jakethesnake]

Fancy transfer setup

 

[jakethesnake]

Front tank has the dryer. Not finding enough corn that doesn’t need to be run through. Transferring to rear tank for storage.