DC motor available

[itsmoked]

Pulled a DC motor out of a private rail car air conditioning plenum.

It's 32V, double ended, is rated at 1HP and weighs about 140lbs.

Anybody need this freak?

Keith Cress
kcress -

http://www.flaminsystems.com

 

[Skogsgurra]

I was shipping the MoMA catalogue from NYC to Sweden last week. It did cost me USD 60 (and almost an hour spent at the US Mail office - is US Mail known to be inefficient, or my bad luck?)

I wonder what it would cost to ship that motor?



Gunnar Englund

http://www.gke.org

--------------------------------------
Half full - Half empty? I don't mind. It's what in it that counts.

 

[jraef]

Keith,
I may have a home for that, I'll inquire and contact you off-line, probably next week. It will give me an excuse to get down to Santa Cruz and take you to lunch (on the company dime) as well.

Gunnar,
We would consider that a good outing at the post office...

They are broke and hemoraging money faster than we can print it. The Postal Servive here, despite being CONTROLLED by the government, is actually not subsidized by them, a uniquely bad situation. They cannot raise revenue by increasing domestic rates without Congressional approval, but neither can they effectively control costs because of mandates to continue services that lose money. So one of the few places they can get more revenue is in non-domestic deliveries. That would look something like some unfortunate Swede on a trip to NYC who wants to send a catalog home...

"Will work for (the memory of) salami"

 

[itsmoked]

Gunnar; I consider the USPS to be the best deal around. I avoid UPS like the plague because I hate their delivery time and their rates. The USPS has cheap rates and two days to anywhere domestic. Their flat rate international is a great deal too.

Standing in line at the Post Office is not great sport though, since it puts you staring at government employees for a while. Something I find extremely depressing and annoying. However! If you properly prepackage your item in a free flat rate package, then print your own postage for it online, (extremely easy), you can then hand your ready-to-go package to ANY postal employee you see and you're done. You pass the whole line and just hand it to anyone at the counter. Alternatively, I always drive to the back loading dock and hand it to someone there - no lines at all - ever.

Jeff; That would be great! It was working fine and was pulled only because if we pulled it we'd be able to shed $5k and one ton of maintenance begging batteries. I'll keep it around, just let me know in advance since trips to the train yard are pretty intermittent and I'd prefer not having to make the 2 hour round trip just for Mr. Motor.

Keith Cress
kcress -

http://www.flaminsystems.com

 

[btrueblood]

Skogs,

If you do have it shipped, have Keith slip a flask of whiskey in the windings...

 

[Skogsgurra]

I wish you had told me last week, Smoked!

How could I know? I consider you responsible for my misery.

After about 45 minutes, I actually sat down on the floor. It was humid and hot down there and I felt I was going to faint. Then a woman came and told me to get up. I said that I needed to rest. "So, you expect me to get a chair for you?" she said. I told her I just wanted to sit on the floor. "You can't do that!" she said. I was wise enough not to tell her that I actually was doing what she said I couldn't do.

She then turned a "Stand up!" comedian and asked me if "You can't stand any more? Or you can't stand it anymore?" She was very pleased with that joke, I think. But the other people in the line didn't applaud.

She was about to kick me, I think, but I got up before she did. In general, everyone in NYC was very nice and I got along very well with them. We (wife Karin and I) even got invited as guests at the MoMA so we didn't need to stand in the very long Friday ticket line. What a difference! US Mail should be ashamed of themselves.

And you need to be more responsible in the future, Smoked. Leaving me in NYC without warning me about the Mail! What will be next?

Gunnar Englund

http://www.gke.org

--------------------------------------
Half full - Half empty? I don't mind. It's what in it that counts.

 

[itsmoked]

Gunnar: Your mistake was not telling her you were "feeling faint in the heat and LONG wait". The specter of your passing out and bonking your head because a postal clerk ordered you to stand when they shouldn't have, would've backed her off or gotten you a chair.

You're very lucky the Zombie Apocalypse didn't start while you were in that hell-hole.
[URL unfurl="true"]http://www.cdc.gov/phpr/zombies.htm[/url]

Keith Cress
kcress -

http://www.flaminsystems.com

 

[Sparweb]

Keith,
If you haven't got any serious queries yet, can you tell me a bit more about it / take a picture?
Rated RPM?
Series/Shunt wound?
Mounting arrangement?

STF

 

[itsmoked]

Hi SparWeb.

Here you go with pictures:
Motor

Motor Plate

Keith Cress
kcress -

http://www.flaminsystems.com

 

[Sparweb]

Interesting indeed.
People with projects such as these would find it interesting:

http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/Hydro/hydro.htm#WaterMotors

But I'm afraid it runs too fast to DIY into a wind turbine like these guys do:

http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/Wind/wind.htm#DIYWind

You could see if the "Engineers with Hobbies" have any interest. Some have 24V - 48V battery packs in their houses (though the 32V rating is a little hard to match to either).

STF

 

[itsmoked]

Yeah that 32 volts is a real show stopper. It's the reason we pulled it. You can't even get there with 6V batteries!

Keith Cress
kcress -

http://www.flaminsystems.com

 

[ScottyUK]

I bet it would work just fine with 30V or 36V if you adjusted the shunt field to compensate. ;-)

 

[Sparweb]

32V may have been used in pre-Rural Electrification Act wind turbines and stationary generator sets. In fact 1HP might be a good match for medium sized hit-and-miss putt-put engines or bio-diesel "Lister" engines, too, and at the same time be compatible with the ~1930 era Zenith radio and nickel-iron batteries that went with the system. People restore those things. There's a museum full of those old engines just 10 miles from my house, but the guys there don't know an amp from a volt, so most of the motors they restore saw logs or pump water.

Scotty's point about the windings is also worth investigation, for someone who would want to fix up that motor, if only for the sake of an "old-fashioned" motor project or for a definite purpose.

A DC motor that can generate 32 Volts can (through a proper charge controller) maintain float, bulk, and equalization charge levels on a 24V flooded-lead-acid battery bank when running at rated speed, because the required voltages for each stage are roughly 27.5V, 28.5V, and 31V, respectively. The motor will even have a little voltage to spare for losses in a long cable run from (for example) the hydro dam to the battery set. If I was in California (near you) and planning a DIY hydro build, I'd be interested in that motor. Especially the idea of having two wheels instead of one (redundancy always pleases off-grid people).



STF