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Hello my fellow ish people. I have lots of idea's for little gadgets that produce electicitiy, but don't know enough about Amps, Volts, Watts. Things like the size of the charger to size of batteries and inverters and all that kind of stuff. I also stripped my old tumble dryer of its motor which says its 220-240v 50hz 1.2A. it says its a p s c motor type 318. now all this means nothing to me so can anyone help or know of a link i could check out. i want to attach the motor to an old bike i have and use it as an exercise bike and make electric at the same time. is this possible because i have no idea

thankyou craig

Hi Craig, sorry don't know too much 'bout battery/inverter systems, but i can tell you that any electric motor can be used as a generator if driven fast enough. However then you go down the road of ac/dc generation (no, not the group!). The current rating (Amps) is a good guide to what the motor windings are built to with-stand ( i.e. in this case; jack s**t!). PSC on the motor stands for the winding configuration ( ***** squirrel cage), i don't know what the "P" stands for. For future calculations; V=volts, I=amps, R=resistance(ohms)..........V=I x R, Vdivided byI=R, Vdivided byR=I . I hate to p**s on your fire-works, but that's the only advice i can give. I'll bet that there are Ishers who can point you in the right direction...... good luck.

Hi Craig.

Yes, it's possible. My straightforward advice - don't. At least not yet. As Pumpy says, that motor (permanent split capacitor, by the way, Pumpy) is tiny - but it will still belt out a lethal wallop if you ask it nicely and use it the wrong way round. It operates at 230V over most of Europe now, but that's AC - which means an actual peak voltage of 325V. And it can deliver many times more than the 100 to 200 MILLIAMPS across the heart needed to kill you.

Get to know all about those Amps, Volts and Watts first - then do the experimenting. There are many, many books on basic electrical theory around and I'm sure there's loads of stuff on the net. Better safe than sorry.

Mike

Hello Mike, i didn't even give a thought about the capacitor........ you are quite right in what you say

nothing I had to look it up.

Mike

nice one!

I second the advice above: learn about it before you start experimenting or you could wake up very dead. As a quick orientation to things electric...

Electricity is easy to understand if you think of it like water flowing through a pipe. Water is under a certain amount of pressure and it flows at a particular rate (litres per minute) through a pipe. Volts are like the pressure. With more volts, the electricity will try harder to flow through anything. Amps are like the flow rate: the quantity of electricity that is passing a given place in a period of time, or current. Obviously, if you increase the voltage (pressure), you will squeeze more amps (flow rate) through a wire.

On the other hand, wire has resistance, which is like the diameter of a water pipe. If you use a bigger wire (pipe), you lower the resistance, and you can flow more current (litres per minute) at the same voltage (pressure).

Watts measure the power of a system - how fast it can do work. It is a product of voltage (pressure) and amps (flow rate). Just as a large current of water needs very little pressure to do serious damage (think of a flood), and a small quantity of water can do a lot of work at a high pressure (think of water-jet steel cutters), you can get a lot of watts from a high voltage and low current, or from a low voltage and a high current.

Before you try experimenting, you will also need to understand how power is distributed in an electric circuit that contains different resistances, and about the difference between alternating current and direct current. Otherwise, you run the risk of your experiments failing the "smoke test". Above all, you don't want your body to be the part that smokes!

I would recommend getting a good introductory textbook on electricity and studying it.