Control/Dimming New (to me) EDI Scrimmer II dimmer packs

Gage

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I recently bought 3 EDI Scrimmer II dimmer packs from an auction and had a few questions and curiosities. There are two 6k 6 channel units, and one 6k 12 channel unit, the 12 channel unit doesn't have a panel in the front to configure the pack for single or three-phase. The manual isn't much help with the initial wiring of these things. Am I just stuck with three-phase on the 12 dimmer pack? It seems like that would be kind of odd if that were the case, but it wouldn't surprise me. Is there any big and/or common issue with the modules or packs that I should be aware of, other than issues with age? Any info about these packs in general that cant be picked up from the manual is welcome.
Thanks!
 
I have a 12 x 2.4k pack wired for single phase power. To change for three phase, the two black load wires on black and red get moved to center terminal for blue. I would assume it is something similar for 6K packs but 6 channels @ 50 amps comes out to 300 amps on one leg. I am not sure how that was normally handled or if it was ever supposed to be wired that way.

I believe these packs age well but output stage pin panels are custom from EDI so I don't know if they can be acquired currently if replacement is needed.
scrimmer2.jpg
 
I have a 12 x 2.4k pack wired for single phase power. To change for three phase, the two black load wires on black and red get moved to center terminal for blue. I would assume it is something similar for 6K packs but 6 channels @ 50 amps comes out to 300 amps on one leg. I am not sure how that was normally handled or if it was ever supposed to be wired that way.

I believe these packs age well but output stage pin panels are custom from EDI so I don't know if they can be acquired currently if replacement is needed.View attachment 22941
Thanks! The manual does touch briefly on it, (the wording in some parts was a bit confusing) and they don't mention anything about not being able to run it full load with it wired that way, but I'm not going to be utilizing the full 6k on each channel anyway. For now they are just getting hooked up to a 50 amp connection for some brief testing, so the pack wiring definitely isn't going to be the limiting factor. Also judging by the picture my terminal block can handle MUCH larger wires than yours, which makes sense.
 
Well, I was able to get a better look at the 12 dimmer one specifically, and while it appears moving the load wires would most likely work in theory, my terminal block is far too crowded to actually do it. There's also a label that very clearly leaves out any instructions for single-phase hook-ups, where the 6 dimmer units do have those instructions.
IMG_20220409_173127.jpg
 
Gage, referring to your photo of the input connections to your 12 dimer pack, it appears that it is now set up for 3 phase 4 wire 120-208 volt power. The four terminals of the terminal strip appear to be for the "A" (left hand) "B," and "C" phase hot inputs and the 4th terminal (right hand) as the neutral. On the equipment side of the terminal block there are 4 wires (for 4 dimmers) connected to each of the 3 phases. It would appear that you could move 2 of the wires from the "B" phase terminal (second from left) and connect them (along with the existing 4 wires) to the "C" phase terminal. Then move the remaining 2 wires from the "B" phase terminal to the "A" phase terminal. Connect the two input cables (formerly "A" and "C" phases) to the two hot legs of your 120-240 volt power and the right -hand input cable to the neutral. the This would place 6 of your 12 dimmers on each of the to the 2 hot legs of the 120-240 volt 1 phase supply.

Now: Having said all of that, the above would work, however by moving wiring around within what is (we assume) a piece of listed equipment, the listing is destroyed. Also, we're assuming that the terminals are listed for the 4 wires shown, however they may not be listed for use with 6 wires (although they look like they are.)
 
Gage, referring to your photo of the input connections to your 12 dimer pack, it appears that it is now set up for 3 phase 4 wire 120-208 volt power. The four terminals of the terminal strip appear to be for the "A" (left hand) "B," and "C" phase hot inputs and the 4th terminal (right hand) as the neutral. On the equipment side of the terminal block there are 4 wires (for 4 dimmers) connected to each of the 3 phases. It would appear that you could move 2 of the wires from the "B" phase terminal (second from left) and connect them (along with the existing 4 wires) to the "C" phase terminal. Then move the remaining 2 wires from the "B" phase terminal to the "A" phase terminal. Connect the two input cables (formerly "A" and "C" phases) to the two hot legs of your 120-240 volt power and the right -hand input cable to the neutral. the This would place 6 of your 12 dimmers on each of the to the 2 hot legs of the 120-240 volt 1 phase supply.

Now: Having said all of that, the above would work, however by moving wiring around within what is (we assume) a piece of listed equipment, the listing is destroyed. Also, we're assuming that the terminals are listed for the 4 wires shown, however they may not be listed for use with 6 wires (although they look like they are.)
Thanks Jon, This would only be for testing, as I don't have access to 3 phase power where the dimmers are being stored. I do have one more question. Since I'm not loading up more than one dimmer at a time, would there be anything wrong with connecting the two legs of my 240-volt circuit to the "A" and "C" phase terminals like normal, and just using a jumper to go from one of the legs to the "B" phase terminal? I can see how this would create an uneven load if I were loading up all of the dimmers at once in a real word situation, but because I'm only going to be testing one at a time with a relatively small load, I don't really see an issue with it. Let me know if I'm overlooking something fairly obvious here though.
 
Gage, Yes, you could attach your 120-240 volt 1 phase power to any two hots (say, "A" and "B") and the neutral and test any of the 8 dimmers connected to those two hots. When you're dome with those 8, connect one of the hots of your 120-240 V supply to the "C" phase input and the neutral and test those 3.
 
Gage, Yes, you could do what you suggest for test purposes. However please BE SURE that the neutral of your 120-240 V supply is connected to the neutral (right-hand as shown in your photo) input terminal of your pack. Attempting to run your pack without a neutral would NOT be good and could possibly damage the pack.
 
A little bit of an update: I was able to wire up all packs and the dimmers themselves are all fully working. Unfortunately, the same cant be said for the control cards. All three of them blew some tantalum capacitors on first startup (not completely unexpected). I replaced the culprits, and 2/3 cards came back to life. One card did not. None of its input power lights illuminate, and the over-temperature light is stuck on. It does this no matter what dimmer pack it is in. I even swapped the ROMs from card to card because the one that didn't work was UV erasable, and made me a bit suspicious. I don't think I'm missing anything obvious here, but if anyone has suggestions, I would love to know.
 
You are on the right track. Replace all of the tantalum and electrolytics.
Replaced the rest of the tantalums and the card is working perfectly now. I've honestly never seen a bad tantalum that didn't explode, but that was the case here. The only electrolytics are the main filters in the power section, I have them on order, but they appear to be ok for now, at least for testing. Now it's time to spend an arm and a leg on the massive 60A 2P&G connectors these packs use.
 
Now it's time to spend an arm and a leg on the massive 60A 2P&G connectors these packs use.
Note that the pinout for 60A-2P&G is different from 20A-2P&G.
On a 20A, middle pin is ground, hot is farthest away.
On the 60A, G&N are reversed, i.e. middle is neutral and pin offboard of it is ground.

Also, don't plan on using any 60A-20A adapters without inherent OCP.
 
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