Schneider Altivar Machine ATV340: Full Review

What is the Schneider Altivar ATV340? It is Schneider Electric's fast-dynamics machine drive in the Altivar Machine sub-range, covering roughly 0.75-75 kW and built around vector control loops tuned for rapid accel/decel cycles (IEC 61800-2 rated). That control bandwidth is the reason integrators reach for it on packaging lines and hoists rather than on a simple pump. This review covers its power range and physical format, control performance, safety and I/O, communication options, duty/overload ratings, and how it sits against the ATV320 and ATV630 in the same Altivar family.

What Is the Schneider Altivar ATV340

The ATV340 sits inside Altivar Machine, Schneider's line for original equipment manufacturers rather than process plants. Where the ATV630/650/660/680 (Altivar Process) target wall-mount and cabinet installations on continuous process equipment, ATV340 targets discrete machine cycles: indexing, starting and stopping repeatedly, sometimes reversing direction within a second. The name signals the tier, not a single frame size — the range spans book units for small machinery up to cabinet-build modules for larger axes.

Power Range and Physical Design

ATV340 covers approximately 0.75 kW to 75 kW, spanning three-phase 200-240 V and 380-480 V lines depending on frame. Below roughly 15 kW it ships as a compact book-format unit meant to sit side by side in a cabinet with minimal air gap; above that, it moves to a taller cabinet-mount chassis with a separate heatsink extension for through-panel cooling. Enclosure rating on the base unit is IP20, open-chassis, for installation inside a cabinet — not a field-mount, wash-down drive. That distinction matters at spec time: a machine builder needing a wall-mount, IP55 unit is looking at a different Schneider range or an add-on enclosure kit, not the bare ATV340.

Cooling on the larger frames uses a heatsink that projects through the cabinet back panel, so roughly 70-90% of dissipated heat vents outside the enclosure rather than loading the cabinet's own air conditioning. That is a real design lever on hot, dense panels — it changes the AC sizing math, not just the drive's own thermal margin.

Control Performance: Vector, Encoder Feedback and Fast Dynamics

ATV340 runs sensorless flux vector control as standard and accepts an encoder feedback card for closed-loop operation where positioning accuracy or zero-speed torque holding matters. The control loop is tuned for short, repetitive cycles — accelerate, run, decelerate, reverse — rather than the steady-state operation typical of a fan or pump. Current loop update rates and torque response are faster than the general-purpose ATV630, which is built for continuous flow control instead of rapid reversals.

What we see in the field: on packaging and material-handling machines, the deciding factor is rarely top speed — it is how fast the drive settles torque after a direction change. A slow settle shows up as a jerk at the mechanical stop, not as a missed speed setpoint. For a deeper look at how vector control differs from scalar V/f and ABB's DTC method, see this comparison of V/f, vector and DTC control.

Integrated Safety and I/O

Safe Torque Off (STO) to SIL 3 / PL e (per IEC 61800-5-2) is embedded on the base drive without an add-on safety card, which simplifies machine safety-circuit wiring where an emergency stop only needs to remove torque rather than stop and monitor speed. Optional safety functions — Safely Limited Speed, Safe Stop 1 — are available on higher I/O variants for applications where the guard door opens while the axis is still moving down under controlled deceleration.

I/O count on ATV340 runs higher than the entry-tier ATV320: more digital and analog inputs, plus a dedicated encoder input on variants built for closed-loop work. That headroom matters on OEM machines where the drive often does double duty as a local I/O hub, reducing the PLC's own I/O card count.

Communication: Ethernet and Fieldbus Options

Embedded Modbus TCP and Ethernet/IP are available depending on the reference, with EtherCAT and PROFINET as option-card additions — a wider Ethernet footprint than the entry ATV320, which leans on Modbus RTU as its native bus. For a multi-axis packaging line coordinated over EtherCAT, or a cell reporting into a PROFINET-based cabinet, that native option-card path avoids a protocol gateway. Diagnostics over Ethernet also expose more fault and load data than a wired I/O interface alone, which shortens troubleshooting on a stopped line.

Not every ATV340 reference ships with the same fieldbus set — confirm the exact communication option code before ordering, since retrofitting a different bus card after commissioning means downtime on a running machine.

Overload Ratings and Duty Selection

Like the rest of the Altivar and competing ranges, ATV340 is dual-rated: a Normal Duty (variable torque) current rating for lighter, continuous loads and a Heavy Duty (constant torque) rating for higher inrush and repeated starts. Machine applications — indexing conveyors, hoists, presses — usually load onto the Heavy Duty column, which typically supports around 150% overload for 60 seconds against the base current rating. Sizing off the Normal Duty rating on a cyclic machine load is a common under-sizing mistake; the frame that looks adequate on paper trips on the first heavy start.

For overhauling loads on a hoist axis — where the motor is driven backward by gravity on the way down — a braking resistor sized to the regenerated power is a separate line item from the overload rating. See the guide on dynamic, regenerative and DC-injection braking for how to size that side of the application.

ATV340 vs ATV320 vs ATV630: Where It Fits

All three share the Altivar name but answer different questions. ATV320 is the compact machine drive for simple, cost-sensitive OEM axes with basic safety and less I/O. ATV630 is Altivar Process, built for continuous process equipment — pumps, fans, mixers — with wall-mount and cabinet formats and a focus on steady-state efficiency and service features rather than rapid reversal. ATV340 sits between them in cost but ahead of both in machine-cycle dynamics, aimed specifically at fast, repetitive motion.

Against ABB and Siemens, the comparable machine-tier drives are ABB's ACS380 and Siemens' G120C — both aimed at similar OEM machine duty with embedded safety and fieldbus. A full brand-level breakdown lives in the ABB ACS580 vs Schneider ATV630 vs Siemens G120 comparison, and the wider Schneider range, including where ATV340 sits against ATV12 and ATV610-930, is covered in the Schneider Altivar drives range review.

This depends on the actual motion profile more than on the datasheet's headline kW — a 22 kW ATV340 driving a fast-indexing conveyor and a 22 kW ATV630 driving a steady fan are solving different control problems even at the same nameplate power. Browsable stock across the family sits in the variable frequency drives collection.

Conclusion

ATV340 earns its place in the Altivar range on control dynamics, not on power range or price. Choose it when the application reverses, indexes, or starts repeatedly and needs fast torque settling — packaging cells, hoists, material-handling axes. For continuous, steady-state loads like pumps and fans, the ATV630 remains the better-matched and typically lower-cost choice. Confirm the exact reference's fieldbus and safety option codes before ordering; those vary by part number within the same ATV340 family. For the underlying VFD architecture referenced throughout this review, see the VFD engineering guide.