North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Joe and Ellen Hecksel <jhecksel@voyager.net>]

> Finally I will add that both Don and I will loose the competition against
> my neighbour who bought last year a 700$ (CDN) italian grinder - a
> marvelous machine that runs on 20 Amp 240V (I forget how many HPs, but this
> is NOT a washing machine motor)


That would be 5 or 6 horsepower (Amps*volts/726...see how intuitive and 
natural the "English" system is?)

As a side note:
You might be thinking, "Hey, I have an old rototiller motor that is 5 
horse.  I could make a grinder to compete with Claude's neighbor."  Just 
as a general rule of thumb, you would need a gas motor that is two or 
three times larger than the electric motor, and you would need a clutch 
and probably a flywheel.  It is not that a different horsepower is used 
for gas motors....although that was true in the 1960s.

The issue is that the power produced by an electric motor resembles a 
table top...pretty flat through the rpm range.  In fact the torque, the 
twisting force, goes up as the speed goes down.  It is as if the motor 
grows under the load.  It is difficult, but not impossible, to stall out 
an electic motor.

Gas motors, on the other hand, have a power curve that looks like the 
capital letter A.  Peak power occurs in a very small speed band.  Add 
enough load so that the motor drops out of that band and the gas motor 
will stall out in a heartbeat.  Then you get to restart the beast.



--
-Joe Hecksel
My personal website: http://my.voyager.net/~jhecksel