n TECHNOLOGY July/August 2026 www.drivesncontrols.com 20 ABB HAS ADDED IP66 / UL Type 4X rated variants to its ACS580 general-purpose, ACH580 HVACR and ACQ580 water and wastewater drive families. The new versions can withstand extreme rain, heat, cold, salt spray, hosing down, dust, cleaning agents and humidity, delivering robust, reliable and efficient motor control – with energy savings potentially reaching 25%. The expansion addresses a growing demand for high-performance drives capable of operating in harsh conditions without needing additional protective enclosures, thus helping to reduce installation complexity, system footprints and total cost of ownership. “The introduction of these IP66 / UL Type 4X variants marks a significant step forward in making efficiency and productivity accessible across a much wider range of environments and industrial demands,” says ABB’s regional product market manager for drives, Prachi Nayak. “These drives are built to perform where conditions are toughest.” The ACS580 drives are suitable for food and beverage, and agricultural, environments where washdown, chemical exposure and stringent hygiene standards are routine. The ACQ580 variants offer high corrosion resistance for water and wastewater infrastructure applications, including pumping stations, clarifiers and dosing systems, where caustic chemicals and gases are common. The ACH580 drives extend the same level of protection to HVACR applications, and are suitable for rooftop air handlers, cooling towers, outdoor pump skids and exterior supply and exhaust fans. An optional Bluetooth control panel allows commissioning and monitoring via ABB's Drivetune and Drive Composer applications, as well as keeping personnel outside the arc flash boundary during live work. The drives have an optimised DC choke, a built-in C2 EMC filter, and two option slots for fieldbus adapters and additional I/Os, allowing systems integrators to tailor connections to their applications. www.abb.com/global/en/areas/motion MITSUBISHI ELECTRIC HAS ANNOUNCED a new generation of 1.2kV IGBT (insulated gate bipolar transistor) modules that, it says, will reduce power losses by up to 19%, thus cutting the power consumption of the inverters used to control machine tools, industrial robots and high-capacity motor-drive systems. The family of ten eighth-generation NX-type modules span current ratings from 300A to 1kA. By optimising the IGBT and diode layout, Mitsubishi has developed a 1kA model with a current rating that is 1.25 times higher than existing seventh-generation models, thus delivering higher inverter outputs. It uses the same packaging and terminal positions, allowing easy replacement of existing modules, and helping to shorten development times. A proprietary “split dummy active” structure in the new modules suppresses dV/dt, which can cause noise and make high-speed switching more difficult. The result is faster switching than in seventh-generation IGBTs, and lower power losses during switch-on. Another proprietary development, a carrier plasma layer, suppresses over-voltages during switch-off, which can lead to IGBT failures. It also allows thinner IGBT chips, helping to cut power losses during turn-on, turn-ff and conduction. New-generation 1.2kV IGBT modules will cut inverter losses by up to 19% IP66 / 4X drives target a slew of specialist applications in demanding environments ABB’s IP66-protected drives target a growing demand for harsh-condition VSDs Mitsubishi’s 1.2kV, 1kA IGBT modules are the same size and shape as earlier models, simplifying upgrades
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