Will a 1/3 horse power sump pump motor burn up at half power?

[Ether]

Originally Posted by EricH

150 kJ << without my telling you, is this power or energy?

It is energy (or work). NOT power.

Originally Posted by EricH

150 kN-m << That's power

No, it is not.


~

[hipsterjr]

Please do not take this the wrong way, but coming from someone who has built homemade/ non-first robots, I can see that you may want to do a lot more studying on basic AC and DC electrical circuits and the wide variety of electrical motors before you get too deep into this project. At your level of experience, I would stay away from AC motors all together and stick with dc. AC is possible, but take a lot of know how to work on a battery powered robot. I took a digital circuits and industrial controls class that really helped me understand some of the questions mentioned here. I don't want to discourage you at all, just know what you are getting into before you spend too much time or money on something that won't work.
My $0.02

[Weird Al/ Tony]

alright thanks guys. and I probably will stick to the DC stuff because I dont really have the money to work with converters and inverters and such. I'm probably going to be on here alot. and I'm also getting other info from other sites. I'm learning terms and what does what. i'm also studying basic electric diagrams. then there are the people who may be helping me from school so, i hope it will come together. and I'm pretty good with physics (without the classes), electrical is my main shortcoming. but yeah thanks. I will charish this time that i have spent on here forever! lol

[EricH]

Let's put it this way: The motor runs on 115 volts. A 12V battery provides about a tenth of that.

So whatever the motor says it'll put out in terms of power, you can expect the actual power output to be no more than about a tenth of what it says if the voltage is the driving factor. (Current--amperage--is a different factor, and can have an effect as well.)

What you have is a household-voltage, low amperage motor. You won't trip a lot of breakers with it, but you won't be using its full potential.

Not ideal.

The exception would be if it has internal voltage regulators to take 115V down to 12V--and then I'd say to remove those for this use, as 12V is your max.

I'd go with the wheelchair motors instead--those are much more likely to be 12V or something in that range.

The fan motor would depend on what type of fan and the ratings on the voltage and amperage were.