Eveready Employees Complete VSD Workshop

Date : 30 July 2018

Four Eveready employees recently attended a practical workshop on Variable Speed Drives (VSD) which took place in the company’s training room facilities. The workshop, which covered both the theoretical and practical aspects of VSDs, gave participants the opportunity to refresh their VSD knowledge and discover new VSD market offerings.

The workshop dealt with theory first and covered the basics of a VSD as well as how speed is changed on a VSD, how to wire a VSD and how to set the parameters on a VSD. Basic electric motor information was also touched upon. The practical component comprised of two demo cases which were specially designed for the workshop and included eight exercises which trainees had to wire and set up.

Martin Griessel of the engineering department expressed how the workshop played a valuable part in the development of his team. “Although we use VSDs in the plant, it is important to stay up to date with technology changes,” he said.

The training was presented by Mr Barry Dawson, a very familiar face at Eveready. He started working for the company in January 1976 and moved on 12 years later. During his time at the company, he completed an electrical apprenticeship and fulfilled the roles of electrical foreman and assistant plant engineer.

Since his departure, Barry has been with Schneider Electric for 30 years and has developed his own training material which he uses to present workshops and training. “He has a passion for teaching anyone who is willing to learn,” said Martin, who left the training having learnt three important lessons.

“We have learnt how to use the supervisory level on the VSDs, which is something we have never done in the past,” he said. It is the supervisory level which gives a person access to read the parameters of the motor and check how the parameters influence the output.

“We have also learnt the difference between torque and speed in application, and also how to look beyond our field of use in the practical examples. It was a fun and interesting day.”