Research and design of a multifunctional soft starter

Yao Lu1, Jun Tong2, Qian Zhang3, Lei Sun4

College of Electrical and Control Engineering, Xi'an University of Science And Technology,Xi'an 710054
E-mail:383755981@qq.com

Abstract: Aiming at the starting problem of motor equipment, this paper studied a large of existing soft start modes and their starting
characteristics. Then, using MATLAB/Simulink tool to build common soft start simulation models, this paper got a lot of simulation
waveforms. These helped to identify the applicable occasions of these soft starters and their respective advantages and disadvantages.
We designed an integrated soft starter that includes voltage ramp soft start, current limit soft start, voltage jump soft start, and discrete
frequency soft start based on dsPIC6014a in the premise of doing these efforts, and given the system's hardware and software design in
detail. The test results on the experimental platform showed that this design can easily set the start modes according to different starting
requirements and all the modes possess so prefect control effect that motor can start smoothly, and experimental data indicators also meet
operation requirements. So it is worthy of promotion and application.
Key Words: SCRSoft startDiscrete frequencydsPIC

controlling the six way thyristor trigger angle, the output

1 INTRODUCTION voltage is increased gradually in some a certain function ,
With the rapid development of modern industry, many until the motor rated.running state.The electronic soft
large equipment application is becoming more and more starter can not only guarantee the starting torque of the
motor and the rotating speed of the motor, but also can
popular. It is important to control these device
greatly reduce the starting current and avoid the impact of
particularly the startup mode in a effective way as safety
the large impact current to the power grid. When thyristor
Production ,promoting enterprise electrical automation conducted completely, and bypass contactor, then the boot
as well as environmental protection, energy process ended. The main circuit connection is shown in
conservation. figure 1.
The startup problem is focused mostly ,because
induction motor is the main power source of these
devices.Under normal circumstances, the power motor
starting directly will have a larger impact on the grid
and equipment. In order to avoid these problems, the
traditional solution is installed soft start device between
motor and load of mechanical.Though these devices can
play a buffer role, but it can not fundamentally solve the Fig 1 electronic soft starter main circuit diagram
problem of impact current, at the same time, poor repeat
ability, big mechanical loss, the characteristics of the
high accident rate and difficult maintenance still exist.
The emergence of electronic soft starter avoid these 3 ELECTRONIC SOFT STARTER
disadvantages, greatly improved the production STARTER STARTUP MODE AND
efficiency. a kind of soft starter can not completely meet SIMULATION ANALYSIS
the requirements of all kinds of starting for mining
equipment load variety, which has brought new Soft starter can be divided into four kinds of startup
problems.This design,as in [1], aims to bring a variety mode, with the aid of MATLAB/Simulink tool to build
of soft starting control method into a suit, according to simulation platform.The parameters of the
different load and starting requirements, combined with asynchronous motor is among them: PN =2.2kW

actual situation starting mode, adjusting the starting U N =380V
switch parameters, makes the motor starting of the best
Rs 3.478
Rr = 2.546
Ls 12.54mH


Lm 332.9 mH
J 0.02kg m

2
effect.And this design has also add the new Lr 12.26mH
classification of variable frequency soft start technology, nN 1450 r / min
solve the traditional electronic soft starter in the case of .
overloading starting difficult problem, greatly widened Now analyzing four starting way is as follows:
the thyristor soft starter application range. A. Ramp voltage start: only by adjusting the thyristor
trigger Angle,the voltage of the motor increased
2 PRINCIPLE OF THE ELECTRONIC SOFT
according to some kind of curve.Because the current
STARTER(e.g.[2],[3]) does not have a closed loop, so it will have a greater
Electronic soft starter based on three reverse parallel impact on the current, but also the starting torque is not
thyristor to make the AC voltage regulating device,By practical, so,there are very few applications.

978-1-5386-2901-7/17/$31.00 ©2017 IEEE 1069

Engineering use double slope starting mode ,the starting
process is divided into two phases. First, the terminal
voltage according to the curve 1 increased motor start
minimum voltage, voltage on the motor rotate
smoothly ,the voltage of the motor increased to U N
according to the curve 2 gradually ,then starting process
is over.The simulation waveform of double oblique
wave voltage starting is shown in figure 2. (b)Speed waveform

(a) current waveform

(c)Torque waveform
Fig 3 current-limiting starting the simulation waveform

C.Voltage kick start: in the initial stage of the motor

starting, the sudden increase of thyristor conduction
(b) Speed waveform Angle namely increase the voltage of the motor, the
motor running under the voltage for a period of time,
and then starting voltage increase according to the
preset curve linear. Its starting simulation waveform as
shown in figure 4. Pressure kick is contributed to
overcome motor drive device of static friction torque,
however the downside is bring spike pulse to the power
(c)Instantaneous torque value and RMS waveform grid, and even affect the other equipment, so the
application should be more careful.This method
Fig 2 oblique wave voltage starting the simulation waveform
suitable for the soft startup mode to overcome large
B.Current-limiting start: current-limiting starting just as static torque overload starting, rarely used in the general
its name implies is to limit motor starting current a load.
particular value .In the initial stage, the motor start
current is increased rapidly to current limit value I m ,
and then make sure that I ! I m , at the same time
increase the voltage of the motor, when motor operate
stable, the starting process is over.Current-limiting
starting (current limit value of 2 I N ) simulation
waveform is shown in figure 3.Starting process must
(a)The current waveform
depend on the motor load adjustment Settings,because
the current limit value is not constant.If I m is set too
small, motor start weak, even cause motor damage
when serious.The starting way is used to pump, blower
load starting.

(b) Speed waveform

(c)Torque waveform
(a)The current waveform
Fig 4 voltage kick start the simulation waveform

D.Discrete frequency Soft start: As a new soft start

technology, it has been applied in coal mine production.

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Discrete variable frequency soft starter and ordinary
electronic soft starter basically have the same structure,
but the former can maintain a higher starting torque,
effectively reduce starting current and meet the general
load and full load starting requirements.
The so-called discrete frequency is the frequency
control, the AC input some half wave conduction, some
half wave cutoff, thereby increasing cycle of output
voltage to reduce the frequency. Due to the cycle of
change are multiples, so frequency is an integer
multiple.Discrete variable frequency soft starter start-up
process is in the band of the switching process, so the
classification variable frequency, also known as discrete
variable frequency. The starting simulation waveform is
shown in Figure 5 (starting from 3.85Hz, 7.14Hz,
12.5Hz, 16.7Hz, 25Hz, AC voltage regulator starting,
starting with 50Hz).
4 DESIGN OF HARDWARE
Prototype design block diagram as shown in figure 5,
the controller used for Microchip company
dsPIC6014A - 301 16-bit high-performance
controller/PF, main circuit is the same as the traditional
soft starter.Controlling circuit mainly includes:
Synchronous voltage detection circuit, voltage/current
detection circuit, drive circuit, the forerunner of the
security circuit , contactor control circuit and buttons
and display.
Fig 5. soft starter diagram of the prototype
A.Voltage synchronous detection circuit
Trigger pulse should maintain strict phase relationship
with power supply voltage, namely synchronous,as in
[4]. Thyristor pulse distribution is based on the
synchronous signal, so in the design of synchronous
voltage detection is essential;At the same time, in order
to correctly trigger pulse to control thyristor conduction
sequence, it must determine phase sequence.Figure6 for
A phase voltage synchronous detection circuit. U A from
the adverse paralleled anode thyristor VT1 and VT4,
after partial pressure and signal conversion,the sync
pulse signal is sent to the processor.In order to improve
the anti-interference ability of the system, adding filter
capacitor to the output of the pulse can improve the
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ability to recognize and prevent of CPU to pulse CPU
interrupt by mistake.
Fig.6 voltage synchronous detection circuit
B. The power factor detection circuit
Induction motor for thyristor voltage regulation circuit,
belongs to the perceptual load and when on both ends of
thyristor voltage drop to zero, the current is not zero,
which will inevitably lead to stream Angle of
(namely
the power factor Angle) existed.And voltage of the
motor is not a single determined by triggering Angle  ,
also influenced by stream Angle
.While in the process
of starting, stream Angle
changed larger along with
the rotating speed, to accurately control the voltage of
the machine, you must make the thyristor trigger Angle
 followed the stream Angle changes, thus to eliminate
the asynchronous motor in no load or light load startup
electromagnetic torque and current oscillation.It
presents a motor soft start based on gradient method of
power factor Angle closed-loop control strategy as in
[5], this method is effective to improve the soft starting
of the motor performance.In order to achieve this
algorithm, the phase current and phase voltage can be
detected by phase difference to obtain the Angle of
thyristor stream.Current signal of the zero crossing
detection circuit as shown in figure 7, current signal go
through filter circuit and signal conversion to obtain
current synchronization signal.Joint voltage synchronous
detection circuit is shown in figure 7, through the software
to calculate the motor power factor Angle, to adjust the
thyristor trigger Angle compensation.
Fig.7current zero crossing detection
C. Current/voltage signal detection circuit
Currently, voltage signal conditioning method very
much, in the same way of signal processing.Figure 8 for
the current/voltage sampling circuit.First of all, the
input current/voltage signal through a second-order
low-pass filter filter out harmonic of AC signal, and
then to full-wave rectifier and the secondary filter, the
dc voltage signal can be obtained with the input
signal .Through A/D conversion,getting the difference
with results and a given value, according to the PID
algorithm to realize the over-current protection and
current limiting regulating as in [6], as well as the
voltage negative feedback regulation, over-voltage and
under-voltage
g pprotection function. button, and motor starting initialized, everything in
place, the processor calculates  ,and adjust b according
to the feedback,until the thyristor conduct and bypass
contactor closed completely. At this point, the detection
circuit continue to work, real-time to monitor the
running state of the system, realize the protection
function to motor after the start.
Fig. 8 current/voltage signal detection
D. Driver circuit(e.g[7],[8])
Front drive circuit integrated darlington chip
(ULN2003AN) will amplify I/O output signal , with
enough power signal pulse transformer to isolate it, then
the thyristor is driven. Triode Q1 run in switch state in
order to make/trigger pulse is prohibited.Found in the
actual test, the trigger pulse width should not be too
wide, otherwise easy to cause Q1 damaged, thus
triggering pulse use enough power narrow pulse
sequence, at the same time, he reliability of the trigger is
guaranteed ,and the pulse transformer saturation is
prevented.Driver circuit is shown in figure 9.
Fig 10 The main program flow chart

6 EXPERIMENT RESULTS
a three-phase induction motor with the fan load soft
start experiment is taken ,and the parameters of the
motor is =380/660V,= 11A,= 5.5KW,= 900r/min.Using
human-machine interface can choose starting mode and
set up specific parameters, measured the experimental
waveforms of different starting mode as shown in figure
Fig.9 drive circuit design 11.
E. Parameter setting, display and protection function
The soft starter contains buttons, display screen.Button
complete motor start-stop control mainly, display for
the touch screen, the user can choose starting mode and
set the relevant parameters according to the actual
load.When start button press, the motor set triggering
Angle according to the requirements calculation,
control thyristor on and off.From the starting to stable (a)Double oblique wave voltage starting
operation of motor, the system independently complete
the whole process.At the same time, the soft start
equipment for over current, overload, overheating and
lack of equal protection.

5 THE DESIGN OF SOFTWARE

(b)Current-limiting starting
Soft starter software main program flow chart is shown
in figure 10.Soft starter with electricity, finish system
self-check firstly , and self-check's main aim is to
determine whether there is fault and the thyristor trigger
circuit sequence is correct.After self-inspection, mode
of starting is scanned, which include oblique wave
voltage, current limit, voltage relay and hierarchical
variable frequency starting.After confirm the starting (c)voltage kick soft start
mode,then the related parameters is set. When starting

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 [4] Ge GuangJun, Wang Xi, Ma Xuke. Design of a new type of
soft starter of three-phase asynchronous motor. Industry and
mine automation, 2009 (3): 17-20.
[5] Tong Jun, Zhang Zhen, Guo Changyong. Research on
closed loop control technology of soft start power factor
angle of motor [J]. proceedings of the, 2013, 17 (12): 51-56.
[6] Cheng Xue, Hou Sizu, Wang Bin. Design and
implementation of a soft starter for an induction motor with
(d)Hierarchical variable frequency soft start limited current [J]. motor technology, 2006 (4): 8-10+13
Fig 11 experimental waveforms [7] Zhang Hao, Zhong Chao Wei. Software of electronic soft
starter control algorithm design. Power electronics
In order to see the characteristics of the soft start mode technology, 2002, 1 (1): 30-32+53.
from the experimental waveforms directly, the starting [8] Chen Zhonghua, Guo Fengyi, Shi Zhaoyuan. Research and
data are listed in Table1. Simulation of soft start control method of asynchronous
Table1 Experimental Data of Soft Start motor [J]. automation of mining and mining, 2008 (1): 4-7
Startin Ramp Current-li Voltage Discrete
g
voltage miting kick start frequenc
Mode start start y Soft
start
dada
Ist ! 6I N ! 5I N ! 5I N ! 3I N

tst 13s 15s 14s 17s

t∀4 IN 5s 8s 3s 0s

Through comparison from table1, the current is higher

than other start in ramp voltage starting, but the starting
time is relatively short; the effect is quite between
current limiting and voltage sudden jump starting , but
impact current of the voltage jump starting have a short
duration; as a new technology, the frequency
classification has better starting performance, the
starting current is small.because its strong load ability, it
is undoubtedly the best choice in heavy load situations .

7 CONCLUSION
Now there are many electronic soft starting device on
the market,the product features are different , so,it is
important to choose a easy to use and full-featured one
for the user.This design has a broad application
prospects because it offers more soft start mode,
flexible parameter adjustment, strong ability to adapt to
the load, and support the change of the online analog
current and voltage.

8 REFERENCES
[1] Wang Yi, Xu Dianguo, Zhao Kaiqi. A new method to
improve the starting torque of the induction motor with
thyristor control [J]. proceedings of the electrical
engineering, 2004, 24 (3): 145-150.
[2] Wang Zhaoan, Liu Jinjun. Electric power and electronic
technology [M]. Beijing: Mechanical Industry Press, 2009
154-156.
[3] Ruan Yi, Chen Boshi. Electric drive automatic control
system [M]. Beijing: Mechanical Industry Press, 118-120.
2009

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