High effciency motors

[J. Clarke]

While I was confirming that Grainger has capacitor-start split-phase motors in stock, I came upon this gem:

While "more efficiency" is a good thing, I find myself wondering how much the average efficiency of small motors will actually be increased by this, and what the side effects will be. Generally speaking "increased efficiency" translates to "costs more up front" so I suspect we can expect the prices of tools using "general purpose motors" to go up.

Can the Chinese meet the new standards? If not then this might be a defacto ban on Chinese motors, which would be good for American motor manufacturers but also mean price increases on all sorts of things.

Then there's a little detail--"Run capacitor provides winding with increased energy to help improve efficiency". I don't know if that's specific to Dayton or if it's across the board--if so, if all new general purpose motors are required to be capacitor-run, then we can expect to have to replace those capacitors with some regularity.

[Leon]

The Chinese are in outer space, why would they not be able to make such a simple change to meet this standard? I highly suspect that because the companies, like most any brand of tool that is built there and sold here, dictate the specifications of the product and that a simple change in the motor will not be any kind of issue at all.

[Markem]

So to have the inductance of the motor balanced by capacitance and it is high efficiency motor. This has been the case in "high efficiency appliances" or Energy Star ones.

[John McCoy]

"J. Clarke" wrote in news: [e-mail]:

LOL.

I beleive the expectation is to go from ~75% efficient (mechanical power out / electrical power in) to ~80%.

That is likely to be the case, since a big part of improving efficiency is reducing resistive losses, and the way to do that is thicker copper wiring.

Another issue is that the higher efficiency motors are likely to be larger than the current ones, so manufacturers may have to redesign their mountings. (which may also be a problem for anyone replacing a bad motor in an older tool).

Probably across the board. A run capacitor improves the motor's power factor, which reduces resistive losses. So it's a big help in improving efficiency.

Note that improving efficiency means less electrical energy is lost as heat, so capacitor lifetime may improve.

BTW, before a political debate starts on this, it should be noted that the legislation requiring the high efficiency motors dates to the GW Bush administration.

John

[J. Clarke]

The same reason they don't seem to be able to keep lead out of toys?

[Leon]

Well they would if the importers specified that. We get from China what our importers specify. If we leave the specifications of the paint up to the manufacturer, regardless of where the manufacturer is, they are going to use what they want and that is typically going to be the cheapest.

[John McCoy]

Leon wrote in news:feKdnXCEN6 [e-mail]:

It's less a case of the importers not specifying, as it is the importers being unable or unwilling to verify their specs are met. The Chinese know that most of what they make isn't tested for compliance, and a lot of them are willing to take a chance on using whatever's cheap, whether it mets spec or not.

This is a bigger problem for the Chinese than us, tho. We get an infinitesimal amount of lead in some toys. They get melamine in baby formula.

John

[Leon]

Which is business 101 for any company anywhere. If no specifications are requested they use what it takes to get the bid. China offers cheap labor and importers go for that. If the truth were to be known the air quality from off gassing of products at the Harbor Freight stores might be more dangerous than eating lead. ;~)

We get defective air bags from Japan. Countless recalls on tainted meats and vegetables. Thank you Blue Bell.

[John McCoy]

Leon wrote in news:lqudnd [e-mail]:

A little bit of apples and oranges there. The ones you list weren't intentional (at least, as far as anyone knows). The melamine, and other incidents of adulterated foods in China, were purposefully done.

John

[krw]

In general, all it takes for higher efficiency is more copper and iron. This isn't anything new and is just a matter of cost. For something like a power tool, it's a complete waste of money (but it's the government's job, anymore, to spend other people's money).

Why would they have a problem. High-efficiency motors have been with us pretty much since motors were invented. It's all a matter of trading off cost and weight vs. efficiency.

Capacitor life is more about temperature than anything else. Higher efficiency should help.

[Leon]

Actually one would have to be pretty naive to think that the air bag thing was not intentionally ignored. This has been a problem for many years. Simple QC testing at random points for the last 10 years would have shown this and IIRC they knew it was a problem and did choose to wait and see and or get caught.

[dpb]

Being ignored after the fact is far different than deliberate malfeasance...but I don't know that there was sufficient evidence that testing of new units would've uncovered the issue as, at least as I understand the scenario, it took time before the changes in internal composition of the detonators would cause the resultant damage whereas a new-condition unit did not.

According to the last report I looked at in June at the ASQC (Amer Soc for Quality Control, a professional org for QC to which besides Amer Statistical Assoc I was member for 30+ yr so even retired I still read stuff), Takata still hasn't been able to fully determine an actual root cause.

[John McCoy]

dpb wrote in news:mpj06m$4nb$ [e-mail]:

That would be my thought too. It's one thing to intentionally make a defective product, it's another to do it accidently and then say "how can we cover this up". Neither is good, but they're not the same.

John

[J. Clarke]

How about the case of "well, we found out that after aging for a long tome a few of these deteriorate in a dangerous way but we can't discern any kind of pattern to it so maybe we should hold off on issuing a recall until we can figure out more precisely what needs to be recalled".

[Leon]

Pomatoes, Topatoes

[John McCoy]

Leon wrote in news: [e-mail]:

Pomelos?

[John McCoy]

"J. Clarke" wrote in news: [e-mail]:

Yeah, I don't know if at this point we can say the airbag thing was being rightfully cautious or unwarrantably slow.

One can find plenty of less ambiguous examples, tho. Take the GM ignition switch case.

John

[J. Clarke]

The ignition switch case kind of bugs me--how does the world's largest automaker, with at that point nearly a century of corporate experience in such matters, manage to screw up a damned _switch_?

[Leon]

Exactly and as I was reading today, the gas tanks on the Ford Pinto. I knew about the Pinto tanks but learned today that they only needed to add a $1 part during manufacture to make the tanks safer. Ford chose to not do that for several years.

[Leon]

Having been the service sales manager for a large Oldsmobile dealership in the mid 80's and exclusively sold GM parts for many years, they weigh the cost of litigation vs. the cost to make it right. Year after year after year you sell the same part that fits nearly every model of GM vehicle and they never improve it.