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Unread 02-04-2010, 17:04
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Stephen Kowski Stephen Kowski is offline
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Re: Will a 1/3 horse power sump pump motor burn up at half power?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Weid Al/ Toni View Post
I am building my own battle bot and I'm working on running it off of two 12V batteries. It will be driven by two heavy sump pump motors. I will only be able to obtain a possible half power off of the batteries and I need to know if that will ruin the engines. I have been told it will by a freind but I dont beleive her. So I need some help. I dont want to waste/ruin the motors after all!
What are your loading conditions? Do you have a model number for the motor so that we might be able to better understand? Are you using the batteries that we used for competition or are these some other chemistry (NiCd, Li-ion)? are these batteries in series, parallel, or individually connected to the motors?

Why are you only able to obtain half power? How are you gearing this drive train? wheel size? wheel traction? In general, depending on the loading condition, the power your motor demands is not a static number

Will it burn up? Well that depends a lot on the motors thermal constants (casing, efficiency, etc) and it's ability to handle a stall current among other things

More information is required to give you a good answer.

Last edited by Stephen Kowski : 02-04-2010 at 17:12.