Follow up on above testing:

1) 1Hp Emerson 1PH 60Hz 1725 RPM motor  (Normal 7+ amp draw)
2) 1Hp Delta       1Ph 60Hz 1725 RPM motor (Normal 5.5 amp draw)
3) Homemade water heater, 120 volt              (normal 6.5 amp draw)

Total amp draw ..................................................... 19 amps

On #1 Motor we installed 219mfd cap's across one (#1P) of the two primary coils.
          then we taped into the second primary coil (#2P) and ran power to the #2 motor. (start coil not used)

On #2 Motor we installed 150mfd cap's across both primaries in parallel.
          Then we taped into the primary coils and ran power to #3 the heater. (start coil not used)

We applied household 120 volt (AC-In) current to #1 motor.
          It drew 1.34 amps from AC-In; showed 3.74 amps on #1P coil; 3.65 amps on #2P coil;
          and 7.39 Cap-amps. This is a 80.8% drop in amp "consumption" compared with normal 7 amp draw.
         
Then we turned on motor #2, which is hooked directly to #1 motor #2P primary coil.
         AC-In for motor #1 increased from 1.34 to 2.32 amps (a .98 amp increase to carry both motors that would normally use 12.5 amps!)
         OR this would be a 81.4% drop in amp consumption for both motors as apposed to 12.5 amps.

Then we decided to add #3 water heater to the circuit.
        First, we removed the 150mfd cap's that were in parallel across #2 motor and installed them in series parallel in line with the
        heater element.  Then turned on #1 motor,  #2 motor, and the heater. (Normal amp draw separately would total 19 amps plus OR
        minus)

RESULTS FOR: both motors and heater wired "together" off the primary coils.

#1 Motor:
        Total AC-In was 2.67 amps
        #1P "primary" had 3.55 amps; #2P had 3.57 amp for a total of 7.22 amps "present"
        the 219mfd cap circuit showed 9.15 amps "present"

#2 Motor:
       Amps in from motor #1 was 1.15 amp
        Primaries showed 3.05 amps "present"

#3 Heater:
        amp in from #2 motor was 3.70 amps
        amps across the caps were recorded at 4.09 amps "present"

Normal amp draw 19+/-; actual amp draw 2.67+/- ; this all translates to a 85.9% reduction in amp draw.
I would like to also mention that actual temperature readings of both motors as well as the water heater were all within normal operating range even after running for almost two hours.

Greetings Aka eel,
      I'm not to much on the algebra of capacitance, but what I did was simple but time consuming.  On the Delta motor where both primaries were wired in parallel from the factory (with three leads; L1 L2 and Gnd) I simply placed a 100mfd cap between L1 & L2 and recorded the amps-in change with the cap. Then repeated this procedure in steps of 10mfd until I started to loose any "gain" in ac-amps in which was around 150mfd. Then I narrowed my search with 1mfd caps until I verified the "sweet spot" for that motor where it uses the least amount of amps. The starter coil/cap were not taped into but left intact.  A good general rule to start with is about 22mfd per amp normal consumption.

The Emerson has a mechanical relay with the start cap inside the motor, it too was left intact and not taped into, except for monitoring only.
But on this motor, it has a small "circuit" board just inside the motor for easy switching from 115V to 230V.  On this motor we just taped into these wires and ran them outside the motor for easier access and monitoring of amps.  Again I used the exact same process as above to find the "sweet spot" for the correct amount of capacitance to achieve the lowest amp-in results.  In this case it turned out to be 219mfd.

The heater, when caps were installed in Parallel (while not attached to the motors) the amp draw went off the scale.  They have to instead be placed in series-parallel on the L1 lead only.

Another thing that I failed to mention was that the 60 Hz cycle remained consistant with all three while they were connected together.

Our next step in our experiments will be with an automotive alternator attached to the above flywheel, where we already know that it was charging a partially dead battery (11.5 volts) hooked up to a full sign wave inverter and plugged back into the motor.  Our initial experiments has shown that while the alternator was charging at 5+/- amps to the battery and two halogen head lites, the Motor only saw an increase of .5 amp.  But our inverter "was" a modified wave, which will not work on an induction motor,  We have a 3000 W cont. 7000 Watt surge full sign wave inverter on order.  Good luck!  Kyoat

Hi Kyoat,

very good results, thanks for sharing these. 

Have you heard of Hector's rotoverter activities?  He makes 3PH motors resonant on 60 (or 50) Hz by tuning them by capacitor banks and then mechanically drives another originally 3PH motor to work as a generator, also tuned by capacitors.  He also tries to utilize reactive power with interesting circuits.  See this link:
http://www.panaceauniversity.org/RV.pdf 

http://peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:Rotoverter:Replications:Deliverance 

http://www.panacea-bocaf.org/rotoverter.htm

Problem is when they want load the generator or the prime mover, the system detunes and would need a continous control to keep it on resonance in the function of the changing load. 

Keep up good work!

rgds,  Gyula

I Know of their work, but have not followed it myself.  We also are experimenting with a 5hp 3-phase 208Volt motor.  We just finished rewiring it, and will be testing it sometime here in the next few days.  We will be installing capacitors too see just how low we can "adjust" the in coming amps, and what configuration works best.  We will be posting our results as soon as possible.   Kyoat

Here are some pictures, the following description will be in consecutive order.

picture 1;    #1 Emerson motor, 219mfd cap's wired to #1Primary coil.  Power from #2Primary is wired to the #2 Motor on the left

picture 2;    #2 motor shown with white wire from motor #1 and hooked into the power-in receptacle.  As well as the black drop cord
                 wired into the primary coils of motor #2 which will provide power out to the Heater (#3)

picture 3;    #3 Homemade water heater shown with 150mfd cap's wired in series-parallel, getting its power from the primary coils
                 of motor #2.

picture 4;    #1 motor shown with NO CAP's, AMP DRAW:  7.34
picture 5;    #3 Heater shown with NO CAP's and hooked up to AC-IN POWER   AMP DRAW: 7.04

picture 6;    #1 motor shown with 219mfd cap's (all by it's self, not connected to #2 motor or #3 heater) AMP DRAW: 1.19

picture 7;    #1 motor shown with 219mfd cap's connected to #1Primary coil and
                 2 black wires connected to #2Primary coil to provide power to the #2 motor,
                 while the #2 motor is providing power to the #3 heater off its primary coils. AMP DRAW: 2.06

picture 8;    #2 motor getting its power from the #1 motor's #2Primary coil,
                 while #3 heater is getting its power from the #2 motor's primary coils.  AMP DRAW: 2.45

picture 9;    #2 motor shown with 150mfd cap's getting its power from the #1 motor's #2Primary coil  AMP DRAW:  .48
                 (the #3 heater is NOT connected in this picture)

picture 10;  #3 heater shown with 150mfd cap's wired in series-parallel to the incoming power from #2 motor primary coils
                 AMP DRAW:  2.97

Hope these pictures all come out.  Kyoat

@hoptoad
 a watt meter reading might be very instructive. if i understand the cct he has a cap in parrallell with the coils. this dose not change the voltage on the coil. current in a cap leads , current in a coil lags the voltage. in aparalell cct the two cancel out leaving the resistive current(inphase) and any reactive current
that is in excess of its opposite phase.  Ic IL and Ir are added as vectors, check out a basic ac eletricity book. the net effect here is to correct the power facter to the source. something that has been common practice in industry for a long time but not OU.

@hoptoad
 a watt meter reading might be very instructive. if i understand the cct he has a cap in parrallell with the coils. this dose not change the voltage on the coil. current in a cap leads , current in a coil lags the voltage. in aparalell cct the two cancel out leaving the resistive current(inphase) and any reactive current
that is in excess of its opposite phase.  Ic IL and Ir are added as vectors, check out a basic ac eletricity book. the net effect here is to correct the power facter to the source. something that has been common practice in industry for a long time but not OU.

No OU. Absolutely. But, possibly a real, practically achievable and legal opportunity for "reduced" el. energy consumption  (and consequtive savings).

Yes, a current leads voltage in a capacitive load, and vice-versa with an inductive load. A reactive energy compensation does the corrections. In reality, much of the el. loads we use deviate for a pure Ohmic form.. It's all about vectors and trigonometry. A phase shift between Voltage and Current, or a "co sinus phi" between both phases...

A long time understood, well known "power factor principle", in theory (and practice).



I'll ask you again, what is the difference between an industrial and individual el. energy consumption? Or, el. energy metering?

Maybe I misunderstood you in previous threads, but it seems you are claiming that the PFC principles are good for the industry, but not for the small consumers?
Thanks for answering.

First off I'd like to thank Hoptoad for bringing an interesting question to the table.  A question about watts and the AC power factor.
One of our members has a "kill a watt" meter, and so we incorporated it into our load test.

Here is some of the test data;    (AD = amp draw) (#1P = #1 primary coil amps) (#2P = #2 Primary amps) (TP = total primary amps)
                                               (#1C = #1 primary cap amps present)  (#2C = #2 primary cap amps present)

#1 Emerson motor; No load, and no cap circuit
9.51 AD     #1P 3.60         #2P 3.50         TP 7.10    .................................................... 216 watts

#1 Emerson motor with 60# flywheel load, with no cap circuit
9.47 AD     #1P 3.55         #2P 3.56         TP 7.04    .................................................... 273 watts

#1 Emerson motor with 60# flywheel, and automotive (air conditioner) air compressor with no cap circuit
9.44 AD     #1P 3.48         #2P 3.56         TP 7.04   ....................................................  287 watts

________________________________________________________________________________________

#1 Emerson motor with 219 uf cap circuit, No load
2.08 AD     #1P 3.61         #2P 3.45         TP 7.06                                                         190 watts

#1 Emerson, 219 uf circuit, 60 lb flywheel load
2.51 AD     #1P 3.50         #2P 3.44         TP 6.94     #1C 4.73    #2C 4.41   TC 9.41        244 watts

#1 Emerson, 219 uf circuit, flywheel and air compressor load
2.61 AD     #1P 3.60        #2P 3.33         TP 6.93     #1C 4.64     #2C 4.55   TC 9.19        258 watts
________________________________________________________________________________________

#1 Emerson, No cap circuit, with flywheel and compressor
air output from compressor restricted until Emerson amp draw climbed above 10 amp draw

10.90 AD    #1P 3.99       #2P 3.94       TP 7.93  ...................................................       765 watts

same air restriction as above, and while motor was still running added 219 uf to primary coils.
6.50 AD     #1P 4.00       #2P 3.83        TP 7.83 ...................................................        720 watts

Not much of a gain (45 watts) when the power factor is added into the equation.

We were wondering if any one has tried converting the AC-in with a couple diodes to create a DC pulse to run an induction motor?
It's my understanding that they run well on a DC pulse.  But I was wondering how the PF would "see" this aspect of a circuit?
We were thinking, that you just need to "fool" the PF sensor some how in not seeing or feeling what's going on further down the line if it's even possible.  I have a feeling that "they" already have most bases covered to make sure that we "pay" thru the nose for our electricity.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________

In a separate test we got the following results: (all readings from watt meter)

#1 Emerson motor No cap circuit, no load ................... 9.69 amps ......................... at 215 watts
#1 Emerson motor, 219uf cap circuit, no load .............. 2.16 amps ......................... at 204 watts

#2 Delta motor, No caps, no load ...............................  4.09 amps ........................ at   95 watts
#2 Delta motor, 150uf cap circuit, no load .................... 4.13 amps ........................ at   96 watts

#3 Heater, No caps ...................................................  4.02 amps .......................  at 485 watts
#3 Heater, 150uf cap series-parallel circuit...................  3.50 amps .......................  at 360 watts

                       Total with no cap circuit:....................... 17.80 amps ...... Total ......... at 795 watts
                       Total with cap circuits .........................   9.79 amps .....  Total ........  at  660 watts

difference between no-cap circuit and a cap circuit:          8.01 amp drop                    135 watt drop

___________________________________________________________________________________________________

This test was run with the following:

#1 Emerson motor with 219uf cap circuit on #1Primary coil only, no load
#2 Delta motor connected to Emerson #2Primmary coil, 150uf cap circuit on delta
With just these two motors connected together: ...............7.30 amps ....................... at 382 watts

      Difference between separate verses "together"             1.01 amp increase            and 82 watt increase


#1 Emerson motor with 219uf on #1P cap circuit, no load
#2 Delta motor connected to Emerson #2 Primary coil, No cap circuit, no load
#3 Heater with 150uf series-parallel cap circuit on L1, heater connected to Delta primary coils.
With all three connected together: ..................................  7.42 amps ..................     at 672 watts

Difference between separate verses connected "together"    2.33 amp drop ...........      at   13 watt increase!!