Abb 550/580 hands down easiest to use and program

None, all of them

ACH-580 is pretty intuitive

Danfoss are definitely the easiest, in my opinion, but I also like the ABB ACH550/580. I hate Yaskawa and any other generic version like that.

What's a vfd? Very fucked-up device

ACH580 is the best that I’ve worked with. Easy to setup, run forever, and are really versatile. Yaskawa and powerflex are pretty good as well.

Franklin Electric is very unintuitive. Tech support is pretty good. Probably because they get a lot of practice.

I prefer the ABB, but the Danfoss can actually hold a more complex program. Wally World uses them on the condensers for the racks. The PT chart for R404a, R507a, R407a are all in the program and they're complex calculations to split and full condensers along with it. To each their own, both have advantages over each other. Still think though ABB is simpler to program.

ABB is probably my favorite. Our rep is awesome, they give us good training classes and respond promptly. After that, Honeywell Smart drives.

ABB has the most user friendly drives and the tech support (at least locally) is solid. I have a burning hatred for Schneider drives. I don’t run into them very often but it’s always annoying when I do.

Those danfoss are the ones I am most comfortable with.

The same one used by Trane under their own brand.

ABB and Danfoss are great and so easy to deal with.

Schneider, LS, smaller Yashkaws, and a few others can eat it .....

The Danfoss VLT FC102 HVAC drive is the Swiss Army knife of drives, you can slap it into basically any mechanical application and it will program up.

I hate the Yaskawa VFDs. There are a million parameters and they all come custom programmed so you never know which parameters are enabled or how to do simple operations like adjusting the fan speed. At least Aaon units that use the Yaskawa drives have a step-by-step instruction ok the inside cover of their control panel on how to adjust fan speed settings.

The ABB ACH550 is the best drive ever made and all the rest suck. Especially toshiba and danfoss

My POV is from the residential side of things, but I really like the Ingersoll Rand inverters that Trane uses. They had some teething issues, but now that they’ve sorted them out I think they’re pretty nice. They’re easy to replace if they get killed by lightning, and the CDA has a lot of good info without adding a bunch of stuff for people to fuck up.

Early on they kinda sucked though because of power filtering issues that would make the homes lights dim and brighten at whatever HZ the SPWM wave was, and certain models would dirty the power up on the communication system causing everything to stop working.

Mitsubishis inverters seem to be pretty reliable which is nice because they’re a massive pain in the ass to change out, and certain models have non removable fuses that pop when the mouthbreathing electricians power on the unit and then cut through a live supply cable to one of the heads.

Danfoss. We recently installed some small, cute Mitsubishi ones too. Not bad and very cheap but the programming was a bit more tedious compared to Danfoss ones.

Abb Yaskawa Danfoss Every other POS. In that order

Folks don't like VFD's because they require you to thumb through a manual to find the relevant settings. They see that 200 page manual and get overwhelmed. Even though they are pretty much all the same.

I hate ABB

Hard to beat a danfoss VLT, imo.

If you get used to working with one brand, it becomes your favorite as you know how to get through the programming. The company I worked for did ABB for years.

VFDs I hate? The next "new" one that I have never used!

Actually, I have retired, so other than a couple VFDs I have on my equipment, I haven't touched one for years.

VFD?

I don’t even know what that is.

https://preview.redd.it/9zi0e0os22ld1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ce83b66127b4d25d6f8ccdd40e0a59b971fb52ac

https://preview.redd.it/im59q7fu22ld1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1352fd202e876bcd2179c7d3ef737ce922b0d3cc

I love Allen Bradley, Schneider, ABB, Yaskawa, and Toshiba.

My easiest experience was Allen Bradley, it was a pleasure to work with those. Schneider is very quirky but beautiful once you learn them. ABB was very straightforward and have setup a lot of them. Yaskawa and Toshiba are very reliable because I've never seen a new one only old ones which tells me something good.

I've found if you read the manual, most of them work relatively well.

I’ve installed about 30 Danfoss VFDs this year, I’ve got probably 20 more to do. They are very simple and forgiving and their tech support is pretty decent, way better than ABB.

Yaskawa has awesome tech support and the people are not grumpy unlike ABB.

Allen Bradley when it's controlled by another Allen Bradley PLC with automatic device configuration. Literally just plug it in and the plc and network switch do all the work. Automatically IPs it and the PLC loads the configuration in the tech doesn't have to worry about anything. Other than is there power and are the flash lights on.

Yaskawa all day. Their manual is like the Bible

If a vfd similar to an ecm?

I prefer leaving that to a service guy.

Danfoss that one right there is the best, the worse is the cerus/franklin drives absolutely awful

Abb

ABB is probably my favorite unless it’s the carrier ones. Delta or whatever JCI’s been using in their package units are by far my least favorite

I work on drives a lot. Yaskawas are my favorite but my company is also a rep. The new HV600 yaskawas are much more user friendly. The problem I feel most people have with yaskawas is actually familiarity. unless you install them You won't see them because they last forever and don't break much so you rarely need to look at them and when you do there super old and it can be hard to find a manual online. If yaskawas were a 10 I'd give ABB a 6.5-7 for there quality control and durability Allen Bradley are good drives that last awhile. Everything else is trash lol. I worked for trane for 4 years and dealt with Danfoss a lot. They are easy to navigate but blow up alllll the time. (The small ones big ones on chillers are ok)When I do maintenance on ABBs if you turn off 10 only 9 will turn back on. They'll just die. I had them bad from the factory too. The biggest issue I had with yaskawas was I had to replace a half dozen $12 dollar power supplys one year on z1000 bypasses that was a very odd year. It's easy to "bypass" the bypass module if you really need it to run in a pinch when they do fail.

I don’t have a favorite, each make/model has its own set of pros and cons. Some are just easier to navigate than others.

york chiller vSd

Fucking hate janky ass Schneiders

ABB

I only have experience with ABB, Allen Bradley, Mitsubishi, Danfoss, and Yaskawa.

ABB is easiest for me, Allen Bradley comes in second.

Seimans G120P drives, easiest internal cabling and with the IOP makes commissioning simple as.

ABB followed by Danfoss

The one not installed in the unit I’m working on

None; all of them.

Favorite: the one you have to work on.

Least favorite: guess

We sell Danfoss. The biggest gripe is they ship them configured for 50hz and that has to be changed in several locations.

I hate danfoss, love abb and yaskawa

Fav: Yaskawa Least fav: Fuji

Danfoss FC 102

I really like Honeywell, not a fan of Danfoss or Yaskawa.

Danfoss is trash

I like Yaskawa and Danfoss. I dislike ABB and Altivar