Brownies Yacht Pro 35?

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Chris H

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Does anyone have any experience with the Brownies Yacht Pro compressors? I have a Kidde 4.2cfm right now, but I have an opportunity to get a Yacht Pro 35. It appears that the VFD on the Brownies takes 1 or 3 phase and it has a 3 phase motor on it. At this point, it may be more serviceable than my Kidde, but it may have too many bells and whistles on it for my needs. I don't have a Yacht, I'd be using it at home.
 
VFD's almost always put out 3-phase power. Motors are more reliable and much more efficient on 3-phase than on 1-phase. VFD's can accept single or 3-phase input if they are sized appropriately *typically 2x the motor rating if using 1p input, i.e. a 5hp motor would use a 10hp vfd*.

After that it looks like it has auto on/off which is super easy to add to any compressor and essentially required if you want to walk away from it while filling. A lot of people hack it and use an OPV set to the fill pressure but that's a true hack-job
Has an auto-drain which is a $300 part from Jorc and is just a high pressure solenoid valve. Easy enough to remove if you don't want it for whatever reason since it's a stupid simple mechanism
 
The Yacht Pro is a nice package. However, it is just a Junior II with a bunch of options installed. If you have your heart set on buying a new compressor and your Kidde just isn't cutting it anymore, make a list of what you want in a system and see what the various manufacturers/distributors can do for you. There are LOTS of people that repackage like Brownie does.
 
VFD's almost always put out 3-phase power. Motors are more reliable and much more efficient on 3-phase than on 1-phase. VFD's can accept single or 3-phase input if they are sized appropriately *typically 2x the motor rating if using 1p input, i.e. a 5hp motor would use a 10hp vfd*....

Many, but not all 3-phase VFDs can accept single phase input power.
 
The Yacht Pro is a nice package. However, it is just a Junior II with a bunch of options installed. If you have your heart set on buying a new compressor and your Kidde just isn't cutting it anymore, make a list of what you want in a system and see what the various manufacturers/distributors can do for you. There are LOTS of people that repackage like Brownie does.
My Kidde actually works pretty well, so my heart isn't really set on anything. I have been able to make some headway with the YP35, and hopefully I can get it running with minimal issues. I've tested the pressure switch on the YP and it is working. I'm keeping my eye out for a suitable VFD. I work at industrial laboratory and occasionally VFDs get discarded. Our controls guy offered to give me a hand sorting it out.
 
Many, but not all 3-phase VFDs can accept single phase input power.

not aware of any that can't. Most of them tell you not to, but that's CYOA. So long as you size it properly, they should be fine. Some of the junk chinese ones maybe, but not any of the good ones.
 
not aware of any that can't. Most of them tell you not to, but that's CYOA. So long as you size it properly, they should be fine. Some of the junk chinese ones maybe, but not any of the good ones.
On some, you can run power to any pair of the x,y,z (input ) legs & they work fine. Others, you need to use a specific pair when single phasing the input. Some, like certain Lenze dives (Germany), you need to move some jumpers around so that the logic boards will be powered from the one phase that you choose to use. Some drives draw logic functions off of more than one input phase & can not be single phased unless you do significant board level modifications. Some of the high end open loop magnetic flux vector drives will trip out if they do not see even current draw on all 3 input legs. Some of the medical grade drives trip out in the same way as a GFI safety. Some of the across-the-line "hotwire" drives that don't have high voltage capacitor banks, like some from Getty/Fanuc that are often used on CNC machines, will not work correctly if there is even much of an imbalance on the voltage of the three input phases. On those, if you brown out an input phase, you brown out an output phase.

Your rule of thumb about doubling the size of the drive when single phasing usually holds true for most of them. Some drives, like some of the Toshibas, will have two different ratings written on the drive, one for single phase operation & one for three phase. Others, that were specifically designed for single phase operation, will have equal ratings on either form of primary power.

The reason why you need to derate the HP when single phasing the input is because the heat on the input rectifier bridge is now divided across a smaller number of diodes. In many cases, if you put in a beefier full wave bridge rectifier, you can then run the drive on single phase at close to original full rated HP. This is true, even on the cheap Chinese ones. If you look at the input stages of drives that have equal HP ratings for both single phase & three phase primary power, you may notice that 4 of the 6 diodes in the primary bridge are bigger than the other two.

In actual practice, I almost never run drives at 100%rated HP. I always try to oversize them by 10-50%. They tend to last a lot longer that way, especially when they are subject to lots of high amperage starts. Overcurrent is the leading killer of drives. Output thyristors are the most common part to fail. Input bridges are the second most common parts to fail, even when used as directed.
 
@PBcatfish agreed on oversizing, I typically aim for 30-50% just for longevity but that's interesting about the Getty Fanuc's browning out an output leg. I haven't run into that on any of them which would certainly be a deal breaker. We have quite a few drives that get logic voltage off of different legs, but they can usually be jumped out to deal with it without resoldering the boards like you mentioned, and that's usually in their manuals on where it's coming off of to choose the input properly.
 
The YP35 in question is circa 2000ish and is using a KB Electronics KBE2-2203-4 drive. I'm going to replace a burnt out diode on it this evening, but I don't have high hopes that it will function properly. Can any of you VFD guys recommend a suitable replacement that won't break the bank? I'm still hoping to find a drive at work, but it is nice to have options.
Jr Drive 1.jpg
Jr Drive 2.jpg
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/swift/

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