Electric motor burning

[john stone]

Recently bought a 'Silver Crest' electric carrot grater from Lidl. It says in the instructions not to use continuously for more than two minutes at a time and then allow time for it to cool off.

However if worked very heavily you can get a whiff of a burning smell from the motor, even within the two minute time slot.

Is this burning smell indicative of something that is damaging the motor or can this smell be safely ignored, provided one stays within the two minute window ?

What is the margin for damaging overload likely to be here, since two minutes can be quite a short time ?

[Phil L]

If it's new, the smell could be from dust / grease from manufacture burning off normally. Personally, I can't fathom why anyone would require an electric carrot grater, unless you breed toothless rabbits?

[polygonum]

Those electric carrots are horrible to grate manually.

[charles]

[Snip]

for grating electric carrots - of course.

[Sam Plusnet]

Suppose it depends if you're grating a couple of carrots, or dozens of the things. The faf involved in dismantling, cleaning & storing the gadget makes it silly for anything less than catering quantities.

[Brian Gaff]

Well I have a bush shredder that smells, but it has a thermal cut out so it cannot overheat. It trips and a likkle light apparently comes on till ts cooled down. I'm not sure what to make of these sort of appliences, but i suppose what you smell is the windings getting hot and if its a brushed motor, probably the sparking of the brushes.

Do you really have enough carrots to make such a device useful?

Brian

[Brian Gaff]

I wonder if they also work on Sprouts?

Brian

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

More than four is enough to justify its existence.

[The Medway Handyman]

Seems like the answer to a problem that didn't exist :-)

[harry]

You may be smelling ozone (O3) which is generated by sparks from the carbon brushes. It usually goes away when the brushes bed in and sparking is reduced.

[The Natural Philosopher]

You have missed the cultural revolution.

[john stone]

You may be smelling ozone (O3) which is generated by sparks from the carbon brushes. It usually goes away when the brushes bed in and sparking is reduced.

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Thanks to all. Is that what they call * Egotism *, not being able to conceive of someone needing to grate more carrots than they would eat themselves.

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

It comes from those who have never grated a bag of carrots and skinned their knuckles.

[docholliday93]

I'd have thought something that could only be used in two minute bursts was not very good for catering quantities unless it has a prodigious throughput...

[S Viemeister]

not very good for catering quantities unless it has a prodigious throughput...

A shredding/grating attachment for the Kenwood mixer works well for catering quantities.

[Sam Plusnet]

not very good for catering quantities unless it has a prodigious throughput...

In a moment of enthusiasm my wife bought almost every Kenwood chef attachment there is. They all work very well & the mixer will last long enough to be handed down to the great grandkids as a family heirloom - but it's still a pain having to dismantle, clean, dry & then store all the bits.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Pressure washer

[S Viemeister]

Most/many of the bits can be run through the dishwasher.

[Dave Liquorice]

Ozone has a very distinctive odour that I don't think many people would describe as "burning". There would have to be some serious arcing in the brushes to produce enough ozone to be easily detectable by a distant nose over the smell of freshly grated carrot...

I go for overheating in the windings and general hot smell from the laquers etc. Seems to me that the machine is not big enough for the task it is being asked to perform. Either that or the OP is overloading it by forcing carrots into it to fast. Let it do the work, don't force the motor to slow down much.