YUY-L pump whirlpool problems

[ziggy13]

Hey guys,

I wanted to see if anyone out there has experienced this same type of problem with either the same pump as we have or another centrifugal sanitary pump. Every time we go to do a whirlpool or knockout at a decent speed we get a torque warning and the pump won't spin. It will go fairly slow and even to medium speeds, but not nearly fast enough to get a proper whirlpool. We've rebuilt the pump, torn it apart and loosened things we thought might be too tight. We get it working perfectly with boiling water, but then on brew day it throws us those errors again. It's not able to go fast enough to get a decent whirlpool, and chilling is taking way longer than it should because of this. Our American "middle man" who we bought the brand new brewhouse from is pretty much useless and of no help, and it's very difficult to have a trouble shooting conversation with people from China when I don't know a lick of Chinese.

Any pro's out there have any tips or suggestions?

[TGTimm]

Are the horsepower ratings for the pump and the VFD matched? If the pump is too big for the VFD, you'll see exactly what you report.

Some VFDs can be programmed for a motor smaller than the rating of the VFD. If yours matches your pump on the specs, check this next.

If they are, check the amperage draw on each of the three wires to the pump using a clip-on ammeter reading in 0.1 A increments. Any imbalance here will also give you an error message on the VFD--not real sure what yours would say. If the draw is out of balance, bad news--new motor for the pump.

[rdcpro]

Another possibility is the impeller is too big.

This pump doesn't seem like it's highly engineered (there are a bazilion Chinese clones), so if a smaller diameter impeller is available, it's worth a try to see if works better. They may have gone as big as possible in order to get the best "specs" for the pump, but it's doubtful they tested with wort.

Regards,
Mike Sharp

[ziggy13]

Another possibility is the impeller is too big.

This pump doesn't seem like it's highly engineered (there are a bazilion Chinese clones), so if a smaller diameter impeller is available, it's worth a try to see if works better. They may have gone as big as possible in order to get the best "specs" for the pump, but it's doubtful they tested with wort.

Regards,
Mike Sharp

This problem has popped up again, I'm here with a huge batch we just got done boiling and cannot for the life of us get a whirl pool going. No idea how I'm going to chill or get it in the fermenter.

Do you have any idea where I could locate a different impeller for this pump? We are having problems finding any replacement parts at all. Wish we would have bought American pumps but there is nothing we can do now.

[Starcat]

Drive setup and DOCs

Most Frequency Drives do not come setup for the application off the shelf. If you have no manual for the drive that can be read in English you are in quite a jam.
What Timm has stated is correct, but you have to start with making determination if the unit was configured correctly to begin with. Metric conventions and foreign languages on electrical system are totally and fully useless in my view. Just the idea of rating motors in KW instead of Horsepower is nonsensical. Its another way the insanity of Metrics has corrupted things that should be simple and straightforward.
You must know the HP, Voltage, Phase, and Nameplate Current rating for your motor at the applied voltage.
You must be able to read that on the line and load side of the drive with an inductive current clamp.
You must be able to go through the drive menu and correct any parameters that are not correct for your motor and application.
If it was Engineered correctly, it should be solvable by adjustments.
If the motor Specs can be determined but you still don't have any chance of getting DOCs on the drive, you could put a drive on the pump that can be understood and programmed. I would want to know whats going on with the motor current in the range where it does run as well as other drive parameters that may be set wrong, and there can be many.
I would not go down the road of messing with the impeller sizing at your current juncture, that would be working backwards to an end that may be insufficient.

[ziggy13]

I found the information I believe we're looking for. I also have a manual downloaded for the VFD. I think it's a pretty common VFD so hopefully I can wrap my head around the above posts and figure out how to apply this information to the VFD. I would surely hope everything was configured to work correctly together because we bought this as a turn key brewhouse.

[AnalogBrewing]

Did you ever figure out the problem?