O/T electrical question

[moody]

i've bought an industrial appliance which is rated at 115volt 60hz, presume this is US spec, but i want to run it at 110volt 50hz UK spec, would it run, be ok? what downsides are there, performance, life expectancy?

anyone know?

[pistonbroke]

what type of appliance ?

[Major Stare]

In principle yes but it can depend on the appliance  

[moody]

it's a vacuum pump which would be plugged into a portable transformer, so are we saying it should be ok?

[Lurksalot]

plug it in and if it blows ..............it sucks  

[pistonbroke]

Should work , some things are frequency sensatave like TV's for eg.

It could run OK  depending on what type the motor is ,

maybe suffer a small power loss through the mismatch /

I would be tempted to give it a go , but keep an eye on things , overheating etc.

If you have the motor details perhaps you could get a more precise reply .

[moody]

it's an emerson c55nxhgj-4035 1/3 hp 115v 60hz iph code m 6.5amp ambient 40oc insulation class b

means nothing to me

[brains mckay]

im not sure that will work properly....

in my experiance if you run a product rated at 110v on a 240v system it will only run at about half speed.

mind you....... you can use 240v-110v transformers,easly available(used on construction sites etc),but they are bright yellow and quite large

http://www.airlinktransformers.com/sitetransformers.asp

i have 4 or 5 in my garage if you need one

[brains mckay]

ha.... i think i need to learn to read properly...........      

yes.... i think it will be ok to run it on a transformer...

i have a dewalt 18v battery charger from the states and it runs fine on 110v transformers  

[moody]

i best add that the voltage i am not worried about its the frequency

[stu999]

plug it in and if it blows ..............it sucks  

And if it doesnt, it sucks

[pistonbroke]

Its most likely an induction motor , i dont thinlk it will be a problem apart from a small power hit .

Its single phase so the speed will be wrong , just run a bit slower .

[moody]

everyone thanks

[pistonbroke]

read this

might help  

[SimonT]

Hi Moody,

The usual thing to do here (in an industrial context) is to use an inverter, transformer and a sine filter (if required). Basically you use the transformer to convert the voltage (again if required) say from 230V to 110V. Then you go through an inverter which will change the frequency from 50Hz to 60Hz, finally (depending on what you're driving) you may need a low pass sine filter. An inverter chops the frequency to make a new sine wave of 60Hz. However the chopping frequency can be very significant (it usually ranges from 2kHz to 16kHz in common inverters). The low pass sine filter will clean all of this up and just let through the 60Hz.

There are a couple of things to watch here. Driving a motor (compressors/fans etc) at the wrong frequency could make it overheat. If the motor is an AC direct on line type there will be a capacitor connected to it to make sure it starts spinning the right way on power up. This can cause the inverter to get upset (the sine filter usually fixes this otherwise a 1:1 isolating transformer can be used).

Using this technique can be very useful, I've done it for 1.5kW refridgeration systems right up to a 100kW factory supply. You could build a 3kW system in a box that could then be used for all sorts of things in the future!