The VW3A3E501 is a controller inside programmable card designed for Altivar Plus speed drives. It runs a compiled application program up to 320 kB, with 64 kwords of data space and 4 kwords of saved data. The card acts as a CANopen master on the drive network, supporting transmission rates from 50 kbps up to 1 Mbps, and handles up to 32 slave addresses with emergency, boot-up, and sync services per DS 301 V4.02 and DSP 405. I/O complement: 10 logic inputs (24 V DC, positive logic, compatible with level 1 PLC), 6 logic outputs (24 V DC, 0.2 A max per output, positive logic), 2 current analog inputs (0–20 mA, 10-bit resolution), and 2 current analog outputs (0–20 mA, 10-bit resolution). The card draws 80 mA with no load, up to 2 A maximum total. Power is 24 V DC nominal, with a supply range of 19–30 V. Connection is via a 9-way male SUB-D connector for CANopen and a terminal block accepting up to 1.5 mm² / AWG 16 wire at 0.25 N·m torque. Two status LEDs — one for RUN, one for ERROR — give basic health indication on the panel.
The on-board lithium battery is rated for 8 years of life. For a card that may already be in a panel from a prior build, factor that into spares planning — a battery swap at the 7-year mark avoids a surprise CANopen master dropout during a production run.
Integration notes for the controls engineer
This card mounts inside an Altivar Plus drive enclosure — it is not a standalone DIN-rail module. The CANopen bus connects through the 9-way SUB-D; the I/O terminal block handles the field wiring. Logic inputs are positive-switching: state 0 at ≤ 5 V, state 1 at ≥ 11 V. The two analog inputs share a 250 Ω input impedance; the analog outputs drive into a 500 Ω load minimum. The card supports 10 receive and 10 transmit PDOs per slave, plus 2 client SDOs per slave. The Modbus-accessible data space is 2 kwords — useful for HMI or SCADA reads without loading the CANopen bus.