VFD 2.2KW 220V

I bought the 2.2kw version to run off 220 20amp from the wall. Works splendidly. I have had excellent luck with this unit. Lots of steady power with great pulse width modulation.

I bought this VFD to replace the Westinghouse/TECO N3 VFD which failed on my 2HP Bridgeport milling machine. I think the unit is actually the ISACON A2 Series, I'm not sure if HKS rebrands it or if HKS is part of ISACON? This unit is considerably smaller than the TECO N3 and only has 2 mounting holes. There is no strain relief for the AC line input wires nor the motor output wires. I used the strain relief bracket off of the TECO, but this still leaves the wires exposed. I took off one star for no strain relief. I'd also prefer it if all the wires were completely enclosed. With the wires exposed, I'm not sure if this unit meets US UL wiring code or not? The terminals for the AC line input and motor output are also quite small, I used forked terminals for a US #6 stud (or you could use whatever the metric equivalent is), this means you'll probably have to use #12 GA wire or less. I followed the instructions given in the "Set The Initial Test Parameters" found on the Amazon page for this unit, I just changed the PN02, PN10, and PN12 parameters to 60Hz instead of 50Hz (I'm in the USA). The instruction manual is very brief but adequate for what I needed, but could be better explaining some of the more advanced features. The turn on and turn off acceleration default to 10S and are much slower than the TECO unit, but these can be easily changed with PN08 and PN09. I used an external pot on the TECO N3 to change the frequency and thus the motor speed, but this can be done on this unit with the UP/DOWN buttons on the front panel, which is nice feature. You can also set it up to use an external pot if you want to. Initially I like the way the unit works, the front panel seems fairly intuitive, and everything worked as I expected. The price is certainly appealing, much cheaper compared to something like the TECO. It will be interesting to see how it holds up in the long term, but I would certainly recommend it at this point especially for a home machinist such as myself.

100% Recommended

In case others don't know this (as I didn't initially!), to drive a three-phase motor from single-phase input power, you need to multiply the motor's kW requirements by 1.73 to arrive at the power requirement for the VFD. I bought a 1.5HP motor ((https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B094GHL5W1), which equates to 1.12kW. I thought initially that a 2HP (1.5kW) VFD would be plenty -- until I happened across a YT video explaining the 1.73 requirement when using single phase power input. A quick Google search confirmed it, so I ordered the 3HP (2.2kW) VFD instead. As for the VFD itself: it works just great for my needs. It was fairly easy to wire up (I created a proper enclosure for it, with additional case cooling, dual pole circuit breaker, contactor and fast-blow fuses, and EMI filtering on the input and output. (Search YT for "Hangar Queen VFD" to see my build if interested.) And programming it for remote control was simple enough. I found that it has a nice additional safety feature by default: as it is powered on, if an external switch is used to command FWD or REV, the VFD will ignore that command. So it won't suddenly start up on you after a power failure is restored, for example. You need to switch the FWD/REV switch to neutral (no command), wait a few seconds, and then switch it to FWD or REV again to get the motor running. Or of course have the switch in neutral as the VFD is powered on. The built-in VFD control panel is removable, but connects directly to the base via a 10-pole (2 rows of 5) connector. So if you wanted to remote mount the VFD panel, you'd be on your own to create an appropriate 10-pin cable with connectors. I elected to leave the VFD's control panel in place and instead built my own remote.