Hannover, April 13, 2015 – ABB, the leading power and automation technology group, has launched a new range of softstarters – a solution for reducing starting current and protecting pumps from clogging and overheating. With PSTX, ABB is introducing functionalities that were previously only available in variable speed drives. The PSTX is the world’s first softstarter with an integrated pump self-cleaning feature that significantly increases lifetime and reliability of the equipment and system.
“A waste water pump can experience clogging, which will reduce the flow and efficiency of the whole pump system. The PSTX softstarter offers continuous water flow to households and industrial applications as the built-in pump cleaning will help avoid pump jamming and water hammering,” said Morten Wierod, Managing Director of ABB´s Business Unit Control Products. “We added a pump clearing feature that can reverse pump flow to loosen up clogging increasing uptime of any pump system.”
Reliable motor operation with increased productivity
The PSTX offers complete motor control and protection by handling and protecting the motor from load and network irregularities, which increases its lifetime. Built-in motor heating keeps an idle motor warm and dry in cold or humid environments, which will prevent it from freezing. The PSTX can also reduce the starting current by more than 60%, even when a very fast start is needed, i.e. for a scroll compressor.
There are approximately 300 million motors installed worldwide, consuming 28% of the world’s electricity, so improving motor productivity is an important task. “With our new PSTX softstarter, the savings potential is huge in running all these motors more reliably, efficiently and with increased productivity,” says Wierod. “With our innovation we seek to increase the intelligence of our products and integrate additional functionality to improve our customers’ productivity. PSTX is able to detect both load and network irregularities and can make diagnostics of the quality of the network. It can also assess the time needed for a motor to cool down.”
ABB offers three ranges of softstarters suited for all different kinds of motor applications:
- PSR for small motors that need many starts per hour
- PSE for small and medium sized motors with the main protections and starting features
- PSTX for medium sized and large motors as the complete alternative with complete motor protection and starting features that takes soft starting to the next level
ABB (www.abb.com) is a leader in power and automation technologies that enable utility and industry customers to improve their performance while lowering environmental impact. The ABB Group of companies operates in around 100 countries and employs about 140,000 people.