Soft Starter Industry Applications

Soft Starter Industry Applications

Soft Starters can be set up to the requirements of various individual applications. Compared to Variable Speed Drives (VSDs), Soft Starters require very few user adjustments while some Soft Starters also include a ‘learning’ process to automatically adapt the drive settings to the characteristics of a motor load (to reduce the power inrush requirement at the start).

Soft Starters can avoid pressure surges in pump applications, also known as water hammering, for conveyor belt systems it can smoothly start the system, avoiding jerks and stress on the various drive components. Fans or other systems with belt drives can be started slowly to avoid belt slipping as well as air pressure surges.

In all systems, a soft start limits the inrush current and so improves stability of the power supply and reduces transient voltage drops that may affect other loads.

The majority of Soft Starters are installed in pump and fan applications, although they can be incorporated into many other motor applications that do not require speed control (where a VSD would be the best option). Here are the main applications of a Soft Starter:

• Steel industries (Rolling mills and processing lines)
• Cement industries
• Sugar plants
• Paper and pulp
• Rubber and plastic
• Textile industries
• Machine tool applications
• Power sector
• Water supply
• Various process control application
• Etc…

As you can see, Soft Starters can be adapted to serve a wide variety of applications in motor controls. The advantages of using Soft Starters as part of your suite of motor controls are clear – longer equipment life and smoother production flow, which translates into time and cost savings.

For more information regarding Soft Starters, please refer to the following related blog posts:

• What is a Soft Starter?
• How do Soft Starters Work?
• Advantages of Soft Starters
• Choosing between a VSD and a Soft Starter
• Soft Starters – EMHEATER – Intro Video