10: Motor madness

After all the motor related issues of the first project I decided something pretty beefy was needed. If at ~480rpm my poor little DC motor was using about 180W, depending on the amount of power being lost as heat, it is fair to say that we will need about double that to be certain of reaching the desired speeds of 720 – 900rpm.

The problem with motors is that not only do you need the motor itself but also the driver which can get pretty pricey. Luckily Tony from the workshop had a spare ABB ACS141 VFD leftover from one of his own projects, capable of driving up to 0.75KW three phase motors.  I paired this with an ABB 1/2HP motor with a nominal speed of 1440 RPM which should satisfy the requirements of this project.

If funding goes ahead I will be looking to downsize the motor and controller, probably switching over to a 24V BLDC so I don’t have to deal with the complications of having the VFD and dealing with three phase inside a commercial product.

2017-03-30 15.20.46
Maybe slight overkill

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