A New Way to Use the Veichi VSD You Already Trust

If you’ve got a Veichi VSD on your farm, you already know what it’s good for: taking the DC power coming off your solar panels and converting it to AC to drive your pump motor directly. That’s the job it’s been doing for you all along.

What a lot of our clients don’t realise is that Veichi VSDs can do a second job. Think the compressor or extraction fan in the warehouse, or any other big motor in the factory that isn’t part of your pumping system.

The use you already know: solar-to-AC pumping

This is the bread and butter. Sun intensity moves around all day — clouds, early morning, late afternoon, winter angle — so the power reaching the drive is never perfectly steady. To get around this, we deliberately oversize the solar array relative to what the pump motor actually needs. That gives the drive enough headroom to hold a consistent output almost all day, even when conditions aren’t perfect, so you get the water flow you’re after without the pump surging and dropping with the sun.

The new use: soft-starting other big motors on the property

Here’s the part we want to flag for you. A Veichi can be fitted to big motors, fed straight from mains (no solar needed), and it becomes a pure soft starter — a smart, controlled “AC drive” that ramps that motor up gently instead of slamming it on the way a direct-on-line (DOL) starter does.

What soft-starting actually does: when a motor starts DOL, it gets full voltage immediately, and for a few seconds it pulls 6–10 times its normal running current while it spins up to speed. A soft starter avoids that by ramping the voltage and frequency up gradually over a few seconds (you set how long), so the motor eases up to full speed instead of lurching onto the line. Once it’s up to speed, it runs exactly as it would on a normal start — same speed, same torque, same output.

This is worth doing on any other big motor you currently start DOL elsewhere on the property — compressors, extraction fans, anything in the warehouse or factory with a heavy inrush.

Why it’s worth doing:

1. It protects the motor. Every DOL start is a jolt to the windings, bearings, and couplings from that current spike. A soft start removes the shock, which means less heat, less wear, and a longer life on equipment that’s expensive to replace.
2. It cuts the peaks that hit your Eskom bill. Most farms sit on a demand-based Eskom tariff (Ruraflex, Megaflex, Miniflex). You’re billed not only for energy used, but on your notified maximum demand — the highest average demand in kVA measured over a 30-minute window in the month. Go over it, even briefly, and you pay an excess demand penalty that doesn’t disappear after one bill. A DOL start spikes that demand reading hard, especially if a few big motors start around the same time of morning. A soft-started motor barely moves the curve, so reducing that peak at start-up translates directly into a lower demand charge.
3. It’s even more important if you’re running a big solar system. A big solar/battery installation is sized to carry your steady running loads comfortably — it’s not sized to absorb a sudden 6–10x current spike from a DOL start. Every time that motor slams on, the system takes a hit it wasn’t really designed for, even if it shrugs it off most of the time. Cutting that peak with a soft start means the motor’s demand on the system stays smooth and predictable, so the solar and battery gear you’ve already paid for isn’t being asked to do more than it should, start after start.
4. It’s a kind of insurance for your pump. A Veichi doesn’t just soften the start — it stands guard while it’s running, too. Built-in protection covers grid voltage dips, phase failure, and motor over-current, so the drive trips safely the moment something’s wrong, instead of letting bad power reach the motor. This matters more here than in most countries: Eskom’s power quality on rural lines is often poor, and voltage sags, phase loss, and surges are a regular reality out on the lines feeding most farms. A Veichi catches those problems before they turn into a burnt-out motor or a breakdown that costs far more than the drive itself.

We can help you set this up

CEDAR is the official Veichi partner and distributor in South Africa. Give us a call and we’ll talk you through what it would take to soft-start it on a Veichi.