The Pump Genius makes it super easy to configure a wide variety of pumping applications. You
can use it to configure simple PID applications where you need to maintain things like system
pressure or temperature or flow or even do things like tank filling applications. Or you can
use it to configure more complex pumping applications
with multiple drives or even systems with
a single drive and multiple contactors, so the drive can rotate through the pumps to
ensure even wear. It can even handle deragging, sleep boost, alarms, pipe charging, dry pump
protection, and pump protection via an external sensor.
The Pump Genius is really comprehensive. But it’s done in a way that you don’t have to
be a drive expert or a PLC guy. Just fill in the blanks and you are good to go.
In this video, we’ll set up the usual motor parameters and build and install a version
of the Pump Genius that is customized to work with our exact drive and firmware version.
In Part 2, we’ll configure the Pump Genius parameters and download them to the drive,
and in Part 3, we’ll do a live demo with a special focus on all of the amazing Pump
Genius monitoring dialogs where you can see everything that’s going on in your pumping
application. We’ll do the exact same example as we did
in the PID Quick Start videos where we wanted to use a single drive to automatically change
the motor’s speed to maintain a system pressure of 6 PSI regardless of how many valves we
opened. Which means we’ll be using the exact same
hardware as described in the PID Quick Start hardware video so I’m not going to re-describe
that here and I’m also not going to get too deep into any of the parameter descriptions
– we already did that in the PID Quick Start parameter video. That will help expedite this
video. There is one change. The Pump Genius requires the auto/manual switch - if you choose
to use one - to be on Digital Input 3. We did use it but we had it on Digital Input 2 in
the previous video, so I went ahead and moved that wire for this video.
We also used the remote HMI in those videos. That uses the serial port. We’re going to
need that serial port to load and monitor the Pump Genius so we won’t be using the
remote HMI in this video. Could I have used a different I/O module with two serial ports?
Or used the USB module? Sure! But we are intentionally using the I/O module that comes
with the drive because that will be the most common case and it only has the one serial
port. It’s important to understand that the Pump
Genius uses a different PID implementation than the SoftPLC version, we did in the PID
videos. It uses the exact same concepts so it will look really familiar, but this version
uses different SoftPLC parameter numbers. Just keep that in mind.
Ok, here we go … I reset the drive parameters to factory default
and the drive’s SoftPLC to the default app to give us a clean slate and so you know exactly
where I am starting from. Step 1: Motor Parameters. Use the drive's startup
menu to walk you through setting up your motor – it configures things like overload
settings behind the scenes based on the motor you specify. These are the basic parameters
for my motor – yours will probably be different. Step 2: Build a version of the pump genius
to work on your specific drive and then load it into the drive.
The Pump Genius is part of the WLP Ladder Logic editor from WEG. You can download WLP
for free from AutomationDirect by going to any of the CFW500 drives and scrolling down
to the Support Resources Section where you’ll find the WPS application along with firmware
updates, EDS files, sample programs, etc. Download and install this guy.
In WLP, you don’t need to create a new project. You can just go directly to Tools, Application,
CFW500, Create, Pump Genius. We’re doing a single pump so we choose Simplex. Give the
project a name, but don’t use any spaces. The WLP software doesn’t like that. Ignore
these for now. It wants to update the Pump Genius project
from the WLP version, it was created with to the version of WLP we are using – we definitely
want to do that. Since we just created a Pump Genius project, we now see it over here in
the configuration wizards. Double click to open that and we see we have the Simplex version
of the Pump Genius. Perfect. That’s where we will configure the Pump Genius parameters
in the next video, but first, we have to get the Pump Genius into the drive’s SoftPLC,
so cancel out of that. To build the Pump Genius for our drive’s
firmware version, go to Build, Compile. Wait for it to finish....no hits, no runs, no
errors. Perfect. Close that. Well, great! We now have a version of the
Pump Genius that will work on our drive with our drive’s specific firmware version, so
now we need to send it to the drive’s SoftPLC. To download this to the drive, WLP and the
drive has to be using the same communication protocol. So we go to Communicate, Configuration.
I’m using this USB to RS485 converter and I see in the PC’s device manager it is plugged
into this com port, so we put that here.
My drive is already set up with these com parameters.
Remember, com parameters survive factory resets. We just need to make sure WLP matches those.
9600 baud, no parity, 8 bits, one stop bit. My USB to RS485 cable struggled with faster baud rates so that's why I'm using a 9600 baud.
If you are using the drive’s USB com module you would select 6 or 7 for Parameter 312.
If you are using the 485 module that has 2 serial ports, then set Parameter 312 to a 2 to use
Port 1, or a 6 or 7 to use Port 2. Ok, we have a Pump Genius customized for our
drive’s SoftPLC and coms are set up, so now we transfer it to the SoftPLC. But, before
doing that, if we go to Parameter 1000 we see there is an app installed and it is currently
stopped. That would be the default app we loaded at the beginning of this video. If
you have an app and it’s not stopped, then go to Parameter 1001 and enter a 0 to stop
it just to be sure we are not interrupting anything.
To download the Pump Genius application to the SoftPLC go to Communicate, Download. We
want to download the application. Looks like WLP needs to update some stuff. So we’ll
re-build those modules and update it. This is all the modules to download, so we hit
start. Wait for it to transfer …. and it was successful. Perfect.
The Pump Genius is now on the drive. It asks us if we want to enable it. Normally we
would say yes here, but I’m going to hit no, and then do it manually in Part 3 – to
serve as a reminder to check the status of the application before using it.
Take a break, let your head clear, and then
join me in Part 2 where we will do that configuration
and then try it on our hardware. Meanwhile, click here to learn more about
the WEG family of variable frequency drives. Click here to learn about AutomationDirect’s
Free award-winning support options and click here to subscribe to our YouTube channel so
you will be notified when we publish new videos.