Industrial Engineer · phase 9 of 16 · noun
Motor Nameplate Current / FLA
Rated full-load motor current used by the drive for control, overload modeling, and protection.
The Explain card
- Plain English
- Full load amps is the current the motor draws at rated load, rated voltage and rated speed. The drive uses it for its motor model, for the electronic overload, and for sizing its own protection.
- Example
- The plate reads 14 amps. The drive's overload trips when the motor has run well above 14 amps long enough to heat past its rating, and its current limit is set as a multiple of the same number.
- Why it matters
- Leave the default FLA in and the overload protects the wrong motor. Enter the service factor amps instead of the full load amps and the motor can run warm for years before the winding fails.
- Hook
- The number the motor is protected by.
Word knowledge
How the word is built, where it came from, and what it sits beside in memory.
In a sentence
During VFD commissioning, enter the Motor Nameplate Current from the motor plate into parameter P0305 before running motor identification.
Why these words
- motor Latin motor, mover identifies the equipment associated with the measurement
- nameplate English compound of name and plate identifies the marked plate from which the value is read
- current Latin currere, to run names the electrical quantity being recorded
- FLA English initialism of full-load amperes provides the common abbreviated form used on drawings, forms, and drive parameters
Where it came from
- Origin
- English technical compound using motor, nameplate, and current
- Entered the language
- 20th century
- What changed
- Motor developed from a word for a mover, nameplate became a label fixed to equipment, and current acquired its electrical sense from the idea of flow.
How it is spelled
- Pattern
- nameplate is written as the closed compound name plus plate
- Pattern
- current keeps the doubled r found in its Latin-derived stem
- Breaks the pattern
- FLA is conventionally written in capital letters without periods
Spelled like
- bedplate
- faceplate
- recurrent
- concurrent
Broken into chunks
-
motor
- motoring
- motorize
-
name + plate
- nameboard
- faceplate
-
curr
- current
- recurrent
-
F-L-A
- FLP
- RLA
What it sits beside
Same subject
- motor nameplate voltage
- service factor
- electronic overload
- VFD commissioning
- motor identification
Same shape
- motor rated current
- motor nominal current
- nameplate voltage
motor nameplate entries
- rated voltage
- rated frequency
- rated speed
- service factor
current abbreviations
- FLA
- RLA
- LRA
Where it sits in the deck
Phase 9: VFD Ratings, Sizing, and Motor Data
Nameplate arithmetic, where the currents, voltages and duty ratings decide whether a drive can actually run the motor you bolted it to.
