Today we're releasing our latest product review on the new ITT PumpSmart PS220. Make sure you don't miss the demonstration at 3 minutes!
Transcript:
Welcome back to another Crane Engineering product review. Today I'm here with Senior Fluid Sales Engineer, Chris Holland, and we're going to be talking about the ITT PumpSmart 220.
So Chris, this is a pretty new product, right?
It's a relatively new product, yes, this has been out on the market approximately 3 months. The PS220.
But this is not the first time that ITT has released a PumpSmart this is one of a few right?
Correct. The PumpSmart has been around for approximately 10-15 years, it's based on an ABB drive platform, there's a couple different models, this particular model is the newest model, the PS220. It has a number of features. There's two other models, PS200, that's going to be phased out at the end of this year, and there's the PS75 which is also an entry level VFD.
OK, so basically, there are two options to pick from, there's the PS75, which you said is kind of the basic model, why would you choose the 220 over the PS75?
Good question, so the PS220 provides a number of upgrades over the PS75. It has a startup wizard which the PS75 does have as well, but this particular drive has multi pump control features so if you have a process that's requiring anywhere from 1 to 4 pumps this will manage it. It will need one drive per pump, but one drive will control the others, stage and destage the pump, let's say to maintain a pressure setpoint, it also has smart flow capabilities, it will, within 5%, calculate the flow rate of the pump that it's driving, via entering 4 operating parameters off the pump curve that the PumpSmart through motor torque and speed will be able to calculate within a few percent what that flow rate is coming out of that pump. So you can actually control to a flow rate without an external flow meter.
So it sounds like it's got a lot of bells and whistles, but it's obviously not going to be right for every single situation, so when would you choose something of a lesser drive over something like this?
The PS220 has a number of features, it is a more expensive option than the PS75. The PS75 is actually a drive that is comparably priced to a standard VFD. Even though you do get pump protection with the PS75. This model, the PS220 gives you the multi-pump options, so if you're running it in single pump, and you don't need multi-pump and you don't need smart flow, you can probably just operate with the PS75 at a more economical price.
So Chris, you mentioned earlier that this has some pump protection technology built into it, and it looks like we've got a demo here all set up do you think you could run through a couple of those for us?
Absolutely. So there's basically three areas that we can determine when a pump is going to be in a bad operating condition, that is a dead head condition, a low flow, or a dry run. So as I close the discharge valve, the pump will now experience a deadhead condition, the drive will at first speed the pump up, and then the fault will appear, indicating that the deadhead condition is in existence, and will shut the pump down. Or give you a warning in this case. Now I'll demonstrate the dry run condition. By inserting this tube into the suction area of the pump, the pump will start to draw air, which will simulate a dry run condition and will also give us a fault. In that case, it shut the pump down.
So Chris, what else is new with the PS220?
Actually, there's a couple features that I didn't mention earlier, one of them is, if you had a larger pump that you wanted to run at a lower flow rate and a higher flow rate, and that lower flow rate was at or below your minimum flow, SmartFlow would allow you to detect that, and when you're at that lower flow rate would allow you to open up a bypass valve so that when you're operating at that lower flow rate, which is below minimum flow, it gives you the additional flow through a bypass valve that would allow the pump to run at its minimum flow, therefore allowing you to control two different operating points that are beyond the normal scope of operation for that pump. Another feature that's unique to the PS220 for the wastewater treatment industry is multi-pump operation under level control conditions. And so that's something new that this allows your operators to control that they weren't able to do before with standard VFD technologies.
If you'd like to see the PS220 for yourself, give us a call, or go out to our website and request a consultation.