Teardown of a ABB 5.5 kW ACH550 HVAC Variable Frequency Drive. HVAC is short for Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning. In this application I will say its purely marketing, as HVAC industry is mostly based on cheap prices and drives are marketed specifically with low prices to this and maybe focus on high efficiency at low speeds.
This drive is physically very large, with a huge enclosure, compared to the actual power electronics content. The power electronics are all contained in a single package, with 3 phased rectifier, 3 phased full bridge and break chopper. It is all in a module from Infineon called FP15R12W1T4, rated for 1200V, 15A nominal and 30A peak. The tagline is “EasyPIM module with Trench/Fieldstop IGBT4 and Emitter Controlled 4 diode and NTC”.
This teardown was recorded in 2020, during Corona isolation. The video got lost on my harddisk and was first found in 2025 🙂
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