Posted by John T on August 14, 2012 at 09:28:17 from (216.249.82.117):
Hey there George, instead of experimenting (but hey thats half the fun right, I'm an experimenter myself) and guessing as to how much capacitance needed to improve on a motors power factor, if you Google something like capacitors to improve AC motor power factor, you will get a gazillion hits of pages that actually have tables and formulas to compute the sizes needed, but that takes away all the fun grrrrrrrr lol
By the way, if you add too much capacitance it looks like theres a risk of damage YIKES !!! and I saw some figures that a goal of 95% is about all you want to go for.
A capacitor isnt any magic elixir or energy source, its a passive non 100% efficient series device that in itself has some losses (it cant produce any energy, it uses some). It can, if needed, improve power factor by counter acting some of the motors inductance by adding capacitance so the current comes back in phase with the voltage (just as if a pure resistive load with no L or C).
If the PF is lousy, the utility or genny must pump out the VECTOR SUM of the two currents, that in phase plus that out of phase, and many utilities charge you extra for that capacity. The motor uses only X amount of energy to do its actual work (spin the shaft under load) while all that out of phase ringing is wasted as heat mostly. Still if the PF is bad the utility or genny has to produce true work energy (to spin the shaft) plus that which gets wasted as heat.....
It would be fun if your experimented capacitance value corresponds to what the charts show is needed!!!!!!!!!
Have fun, keep safe, keep us posted, dont get hold of a charged up big capacitor OUCH lol
Mark in Michigan, you out there? Whatcha think??
John T (Remember Im rusty on this so no warranty and dont have a calf if this isnt perfect!!!)
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