INVT Solutions for Chicken House Applications

Abstract:

In order to expand the scale and improve the production efficiency, modern chicken house adopts high density feeding technology to raise as many chickens as possible in limited space. The key factor of high-density breeding technology is the regulation of environment temperature, which will lead to the death of chickens. At the same time, ensure the ventilation in the chicken farm, keep the clean air, and avoid the indoor accumulation of virus.

This paper describes the equipment composition and working principle of the automatic temperature regulating system in the chicken house, with emphasis on the selection, control and effect of the frequency converter. The temperature is usually controlled by air exchange. In this paper, the method of speed regulation and temperature control of chicken house with INVT inverter control fan, and the circuit diagram is given. This method has the characteristics of stable temperature control, energy saving, complete protection functions and superior starting performance.

In addition, some chicken farms produce tens of thousands of eggs a day, and only rely on human to do the sorting of eggs, which is very inefficient. This paper also introduces the application of INVT inverter in egg sorting machine.

Key words: Conveyor belt, Egg Sorting Table, Fan application, Temperature control, Chicken House, GD20-UL INVT.

Overview

The INVT inverter has been designed to fulfil all the requirements of the different applications in Chicken Farm. Our standard GD20-UL drive, which support below features:
1.V/F and Sensorless Vector Control
2.Up to 0.5Hz/150% starting torque
3.Standard built-in braking unit
4.External keypad to copy parameters
5.Meet UL/cUL certification for North American market
6.Customization services provided (like PTC , Fire-Mode, HVAC)
7.Automatic restart after momentary power failure at starting frequency
8.Current limiting on acceleration and running set at 180% or higher
9.Motor thermal overload can be disabled
10.Input phase loss can be disabled
11.Auto reset multiple times after trip with adjustable time delay between restarts
12.Restart spinning motor after momentary power interruption
13.Reverse rotation inhibit
14.Overvoltage shutdown based on 400 vdc for 230 vac or 800 vdc for 480 vac
15.GD20-UL can support power supply such as:
*1-ph 200(-15%)~240(+10%)
*3-ph 200(-15%)~240(+10%)
*3-ph 380(-15%)~480(+10%)

In the paper, we took one customer field site as an example, the application site is located in South Carolina of USA.

Chicken farm pictures

Chicken farm pictures

Fan application is easy to do, just require to use an external potentiometer to achieve the speed adjustment.

Typical Fan

Fan mounting frame and electrical power

INVT SOLUTION of Fan Application in Chicken house

System diagram of each fan:

High-speed calculation capability
Uses the CPU with the basic command processing speed up to 1ns.

Thompson Farms - Egg Sorting Table

This is a summary for the Egg Sorting Table project that INVT did in Chicken House.

Old System:
-There are 8 conveyor systems transporting eggs from the chicken nests in four houses (2 systems per house) that are each 20 meters wide and 150 meters long.
-Each conveyor system has a .37 kW DC motor and DC drive.
-There is one main conveyor that each of the other eight conveyors feed.
-Each conveyor operates for about 15 minutes, twice per day.
-Main conveyor has to be running for any of the eight conveyors to operate.
-Each drive has a pot (12 V 2.2 k Ohm resistor), an On/Off switch and a Red/Green light. The wiring is 18 gage, 4 conductor (2 conductor for pot and 2 conductor for On/Off toggle switch and light), shielded.
-Their problems with the DC system is:
a.They couldn’t regulate the speed of the individual conveyors to match the main conveyor.
b.The DC motors had high maintenance, such as changing out the brushes.

Some Pictures of the old system as below:

Lesson DC motor and mating Ohio gearbox

Shenandoah control box

Wadeken - Lesson DC motor and DC drive

Wadeken DC controls at central location

New System with INVT VFD:
-Replaced each DC motor with a 0.37 kW AC motor. AC motors are far more reliable.
-Replaced each DC drive with a GD20-1R5G-S2-UL drive.
-Each control box has the following:
a.IP65 (dust tight) enclosure. No dust inside the enclosure
b.Two latches to close
c.Red power on light on top
d.Toggle for On – Off on top
e.Line fuses for 230 Volts incoming on top
f.Toggle on right side for operation at Remote or Local control
g.Forward or Reverse direction mounted bottom right inside enclosure. Reverse is rarely used but in setting up with a new conveyor belt
h.Local control on far left side with a speed pot and a toggle switch on the right side for Local or Remote
i.Remote control is in the left bottom
-There is an On – Off toggle and a speed pot.
-Total operating time per day per conveyor is (twice/day - 15 minutes each time) 30 minutes total per day.
-The enclosures as below shows, so no dust is in any of the enclosures.

New system pictures

INVT SOLUTION of Egg Sorting Table Application

System diagram

Parameters setting

SOLUTION of Enclosures

Due to the application’s dust is too much, IP20 protection is not enough, it’s easy to make the dust goes into VFD, then cause the VFD damaged. So INVT try to find an economic solution to meet customer’s requirement.

To avoid dust goes into VFD, we have two solutions for customer:

1#. Inverter install in the enclosure totally, the enclosure is closed.

Because the heat issue, INVT have to simulate the heat by thermal simulating software on the computer. In this case, here below is our suggestion:

2#. The second solution, flange mounting, half of the inverter install outside the enclosure with a metal support strap. We suggest that this solution, if customer don't mind the dust into the fan road. Because use this solution, the size of enclosure will be smaller.

Enclosures as below shows:

YH-121006 YH Series Hinged Waterproof NEMA Electrical Enclosures

12.59 x 10.59 x 7.11 in. / 319.79 x 268.99 x 180.59 mm. / 5.47 lbs
• UL Listed to UL508A (File No. E352997)
• Designed to IP66 / IP68* of IEC 529
• Meets NEMA 1, 2, 3, 3R, 4, 4X, 5, 6/6P*, 12 & 13 specifications
• External all plastic hinge design, molded from polycarbonate
• Optional mounting panel kit YX-1210K available
• Optional DIN rail kits and pole mounting kit PK-120 available
* IP68 & NEMA 6/6P rated only when using screw close configuration

Summary
With the rapid development of frequency conversion technology, frequency converter is also widely used in enterprises, which can help enterprises to save energy in the production process, reduce costs and ensure the stability and reliability of production quality. To meet the requirements of chicken farm, INVT can provide different solutions to help customer save money, make the system high efficiency and easy to be used, save energy.

References
[1]GD20-UL Inverter Operation Manual. Shenzhen INVT Electric CO., LTD.
[2]INVT GD series VFD catalog. Shenzhen INVT Electric CO., LTD.
[3]How to solve heat issue of VFD. Shenzhen INVT Electric CO., LTD.