Induction motors and capacitors lowers amps "consumption"

[Kyoat]

Hi everyone, I'm new to this site, so I hope I'm doing this right.  I couldn't find a topic that best fits our research topic so it took me a while to learn how to figure out and navigate the site.

We've had fun these past few weeks experimenting with capacitors and induction motors. And have achieved remarkable results.  Useing an Emerson 1HP, 1Ph, 60Hz @ 1725 RPM 14.2 amp at 115 Vac/7.1 amp at 230 Vac drawing on average about 7 amps without a load.

by placing capacitors in parallel across the primary coils have managed to get the amps-in down to .98 amp while the primaries are showing 7.18 amp and the capacitor bank has 9.52 amp.

We hooked the motor (without caps) up to a 60 lb. flywheel (useing gear reduction) and verified the flywheel RPM's with a digital RPM strobe meter at 697 RPM's. drawing a little over 7 amps.  While strobe still running at 697 we shut down the motor.  Clocking the time from a dead start to full RPM's at 5 seconds.   

Then we added 219 uf 370 Vac capacitor's and ran the above test again.  This time from a dead stop to full RPM's was 2.5 seconds at 1.34 amps.  The primary coils were showing 7.30 amps and the capacitors were showing 8.35 amps. Providing more torque and 50% faster start-up speed using 80% less power "consumption". 

After extensive testing and data research we discovered that this basic principal has been patented by Oscar McLane; US patent number 6,331,760 B1 on Dec 18, 2001.

I'm sure that probably alot of you people are already aware of this info, maybe not.  So I decided to post it for all to see.

[Kyoat]

Follow up on above testing:

1) 1Hp Emerson 1PH 60Hz 1725 RPM motor  (Normal 7+ amp draw)
2) 1Hp Delta       1Ph 60Hz 1725 RPM motor (Normal 5.5 amp draw)
3) Homemade water heater, 120 volt              (normal 6.5 amp draw)

Total amp draw ..................................................... 19 amps

On #1 Motor we installed 219mfd cap's across one (#1P) of the two primary coils.
          then we taped into the second primary coil (#2P) and ran power to the #2 motor. (start coil not used)

On #2 Motor we installed 150mfd cap's across both primaries in parallel.
          Then we taped into the primary coils and ran power to #3 the heater. (start coil not used)

We applied household 120 volt (AC-In) current to #1 motor.
          It drew 1.34 amps from AC-In; showed 3.74 amps on #1P coil; 3.65 amps on #2P coil;
          and 7.39 Cap-amps. This is a 80.8% drop in amp "consumption" compared with normal 7 amp draw.
         
Then we turned on motor #2, which is hooked directly to #1 motor #2P primary coil.
         AC-In for motor #1 increased from 1.34 to 2.32 amps (a .98 amp increase to carry both motors that would normally use 12.5 amps!)
         OR this would be a 81.4% drop in amp consumption for both motors as apposed to 12.5 amps.

Then we decided to add #3 water heater to the circuit.
        First, we removed the 150mfd cap's that were in parallel across #2 motor and installed them in series parallel in line with the
        heater element.  Then turned on #1 motor,  #2 motor, and the heater. (Normal amp draw separately would total 19 amps plus OR
        minus)

RESULTS FOR: both motors and heater wired "together" off the primary coils.

#1 Motor:
        Total AC-In was 2.67 amps
        #1P "primary" had 3.55 amps; #2P had 3.57 amp for a total of 7.22 amps "present"
        the 219mfd cap circuit showed 9.15 amps "present"

#2 Motor:
       Amps in from motor #1 was 1.15 amp
        Primaries showed 3.05 amps "present"

#3 Heater:
        amp in from #2 motor was 3.70 amps
        amps across the caps were recorded at 4.09 amps "present"

Normal amp draw 19+/-; actual amp draw 2.67+/- ; this all translates to a 85.9% reduction in amp draw.
I would like to also mention that actual temperature readings of both motors as well as the water heater were all within normal operating range even after running for almost two hours.

[Anothertruthfinder]

Hi all 
              this seems so incredibly simple with a major gain to boot - anyone tried attaching a gen and see if a loop can be achieved? and also could an ac gen be modded in this way with output/efficiency gain?

i would like to start experimenting with this it sounds simple enough - im uk, 240ac 50hz any particular recomended caps? is it a case of taking the motor housing off and applying a cap parallel to the primary winding? i dont know too much about induction motors but can work generally work it out, i can find loads of induction motors at the scrappy for a couple of pounds so might just do this one! hehe

keep up the good work guys - aka eel 

[Kyoat]

Greetings Aka eel,
      I'm not to much on the algebra of capacitance, but what I did was simple but time consuming.  On the Delta motor where both primaries were wired in parallel from the factory (with three leads; L1 L2 and Gnd) I simply placed a 100mfd cap between L1 & L2 and recorded the amps-in change with the cap. Then repeated this procedure in steps of 10mfd until I started to loose any "gain" in ac-amps in which was around 150mfd. Then I narrowed my search with 1mfd caps until I verified the "sweet spot" for that motor where it uses the least amount of amps. The starter coil/cap were not taped into but left intact.  A good general rule to start with is about 22mfd per amp normal consumption.

The Emerson has a mechanical relay with the start cap inside the motor, it too was left intact and not taped into, except for monitoring only.
But on this motor, it has a small "circuit" board just inside the motor for easy switching from 115V to 230V.  On this motor we just taped into these wires and ran them outside the motor for easier access and monitoring of amps.  Again I used the exact same process as above to find the "sweet spot" for the correct amount of capacitance to achieve the lowest amp-in results.  In this case it turned out to be 219mfd.

The heater, when caps were installed in Parallel (while not attached to the motors) the amp draw went off the scale.  They have to instead be placed in series-parallel on the L1 lead only.

Another thing that I failed to mention was that the 60 Hz cycle remained consistant with all three while they were connected together.

Our next step in our experiments will be with an automotive alternator attached to the above flywheel, where we already know that it was charging a partially dead battery (11.5 volts) hooked up to a full sign wave inverter and plugged back into the motor.  Our initial experiments has shown that while the alternator was charging at 5+/- amps to the battery and two halogen head lites, the Motor only saw an increase of .5 amp.  But our inverter "was" a modified wave, which will not work on an induction motor,  We have a 3000 W cont. 7000 Watt surge full sign wave inverter on order.  Good luck!  Kyoat

[gyulasun]

Hi Kyoat,

very good results, thanks for sharing these. 

Have you heard of Hector's rotoverter activities?  He makes 3PH motors resonant on 60 (or 50) Hz by tuning them by capacitor banks and then mechanically drives another originally 3PH motor to work as a generator, also tuned by capacitors.  He also tries to utilize reactive power with interesting circuits.  See this link:
http://www.panaceauniversity.org/RV.pdf 

http://peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:Rotoverter:Replications:Deliverance 

http://www.panacea-bocaf.org/rotoverter.htm

Problem is when they want load the generator or the prime mover, the system detunes and would need a continous control to keep it on resonance in the function of the changing load. 

Keep up good work!

rgds,  Gyula