ECM motors for tools?

[amuller]

ECM motors have been around for a while and can be scrounged from heaters and air handlers being changed out.
These seem to be electronically commutated (magnets on the rotor) with built in drive electronics. I'm wondering if these have any good application to powering tools.

(1) They are efficient which may not matter too much with the hours of use they would actually get;

(2) They are made for direct drive blowers and there might be issues with the side loads that a belt would impose; and

(3) They seem to have a limited number of pre-selected speeds as programmed by the HVAC equipment maker. Any way to get around this and control them with a pot?

Thoughts?

 

[markba633csi]

I believe these are inverter-driven multiphase motors so they have an electronics package to drive them- you would need to get into the electronics
if you wanted to vary the speed, and they may not be as efficient at speeds other than those they are designed for

 

[B2]

Hi @amuller

They are made for direct drive blowers and there might be issues with the side loads that a belt would impose; and

You are correct about their being direct drive, but I would not worry too much about the side load.

I have one of these blower motors in my furnace and have have worked on the furnace several times. Never had a problem with the motor. The equivalent of a VFD is built into the head that is mounted on the motor. You are correct, about the furnace controlling the speed as the motor is ramped up and ramped down as well has having multiple final speeds. I would think that will just a little study effort on your part that you could do well with making one of these into a motor for a different machine. The air handling, when at high speed can be a significant load. So something like this to drive a reasonable load should be fine. The Cap on my motor has about a dozen control wires going into it so I suspect that you can make it run a many speeds.

I wish I had a source for these old blowers. I would use them for driving grinders, belt sander, etc as well as air handling for ventilation etc.

Dave L.

 

[amuller]

I believe these are inverter-driven multiphase motors so they have an electronics package to drive them- you would need to get into the electronics
if you wanted to vary the speed, and they may not be as efficient at speeds other than those they are designed for

Thanks for the responses.

My first encounter with one of these was in a furnace bought used for $50 that has heated my house for some years. Removing the end cap showed a visibly burnt MOV costing around $1-2 to replace. No problems since. (But I do have protective devices in the load center. These are, or were, cheap from Delta Lightning Arrestors.)

Agree that belt loads are likely not an issue as the bearing size is probably set by the shaft size.

But, these motors are meant to live in the scroll of a blower, mounted on a belly band. And they are "air over" for cooling--no internal fans. So a cooling fan and some sort of base mount would have to be ginned up.

As far as the electronics, one I"m looking at has 16 control input terminals, many corresponding to different ramp rates and terminal speeds. It's not tagged as reversible. Possible to bypass this?

So, doable, but worth the bother?

 

[markba633csi]

Sure, why not? I'm always up for a little fiddling around