Direct drive centrifugal upblast fan speed

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powerplay

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On a direct drive centrifugal upblast fan on a rooftop, at 115 volts it was rated for a FLA of 4.2amps, and at 230 volts an FLA of 2.1 amps. I checked the wiring which followed the diagram for 115volts, but clamp reading showed drawing 2.3-2.8 amps...just an efficient motor?
 
Two thoughts

They used an oversized motor for the fan

Or

The air flow is being restricted, less air flow results in less load on the motor.
 
General purpose blower manufacturers rarely know the application details. Airflow restrictions, fluid temperatures, OAT, and other variables all contribute to load change for the motor. Clamp on ammeter accuracy at low current levels, CT orientation to the wire could explain differences. Acid test is motor temp after several hours of run time. A cool motor is generally happy.
 
The engineer tested the RPM's and it turned out to be running a little less than the motor's nameplate RPM listed.... but as i mentioned the motor was running at 2.5 amps rather than nameplate listed 4.1amps with speed controll bypassed. They were happy and wanted the mechanical guys to change the flexible pipe to the ceiling grill to straight pipe... and then had me put in a simple on/off switch rather than a speed controller.
 
It turned out the two air vents taken off the ductwork were supposed to be hard pipe from different holes, and not tee'd off the same flexible connection. the air restriction reduced the load I take it and dropped the HP needed. I will take another reading after the ductwork changes. Thanks again.
 
Only if it is loaded to it's rated horsepower.

To expand on that, an electric motor will only do the work it is required to do, or die trying. In other words if the work it is required to do is less than what it is rated for, it only does that work and consumes that much electrical power (plus some losses in conversion efficiency). If the required load is GREATER than what the motor is designed to do, it will still attempt to do it, even though the process will eventually fry the motor. It's a "dumb animal" in that regard, hence motor overload protection.

So if you have a 1/16HP motor (as this one appears to be) and the air flow only requires 1/32HP, the motor is only going to draw the electrical power required for 1/32HP, about 23W, plus whatever losses exist in the motor. At this small of a load, you are looking at maybe 5-6W of losses, so the motor may be drawing 28-29W.

Most AC motors will have an efficiency that drops off as the motor load drops off, because some of the losses are related to the power consumed in just making a motor into a motor, and a small percentage of those losses will be related to the size of the motor. So for that reason it's best to size a motor for about 75-90% of the expected load, that's the "sweet spot" of the motor's efficiency curve. In your case, at what appears to be around 60% load, this motor is probably not operating at it's best so it may be consuming 1 or slightly more watts than it otherwise could if it were a smaller motor at closer to its rated load. But on the other hand it will last a long time as far as stress on the windings goes and sometimes that's the design criteria; sacrifice a few watts of efficiency for the fact that a motor that is difficult to access will last a lot longer.
 
It turned out the two air vents taken off the ductwork were supposed to be hard pipe from different holes, and not tee'd off the same flexible connection. the air restriction reduced the load I take it and dropped the HP needed. I will take another reading after the ductwork changes. Thanks again.
The surprising thing was that the speed was lower than full load specifications. As one unloads MOST induction motors, the speed approaches the synchronous speed. I looked up a 1/8 HP general purpose motor on Baldor's site and find that relationship to hold for it:

% of Rated Load 25 50 75 100 125 150 S.F.
Power Factor 38 45 50 58 61 69 63
Efficiency 19.4 32.1 41.9 45.9 48.6 49.1 50.2
Speed (rpm) 1770 1754 1733 1715 1680 1663 1659
Line Amperes 1.43 1.45 1.49 1.55 1.7 1.78 1.79

Columns don't line up at all well with the paste ... but all are there so it can be figured out.
 
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