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Has anyone ever replaced their conventional furnace fan motor with an ECM motor?

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Has anyone ever replaced their conventional furnace fan motor with an ECM motor? Some Guy 12-21-2007
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Posted by 98 Guy on December 23, 2007, 7:39 pm
Tony Hwang wrote:

> Lennox is known for selling parts only to trade people.

That sounds like a crock of shit. I guess the HVAC industry is full
of companies that limit the availability of parts to the general
public. Stone-age thinking these days.

> Another issue maybe mechanically fitting it into your existing
> set up.

I agree, but that's my problem (if I go down that road).

> Prepare to pay over a grand for motor and controller.

Again the controller issue. Has anyone ever seen a data sheet for
these motors?

Has anyone considered that the controller is built into these motors,
and maybe they have just a few control lines for speed selection -
that can easily be rigged up for manual control (or set to run at a
constant speed) ???

While on that topic - are there any electronic thermostats that can
control multi-speed motors?

> How much is electricity cost where you are?
> I have locked in rate of 7 cents per KWH for next 5 years.

I pay 10.6 cents per KWH. That includes ALL direct and indirect
costs. Indirect costs include taxes, delivery charges, regulatory
charges, etc. The electricity itself is billed at about 5.8 cents per
KWH.

When my meter is read, the reading is multiplied by 1.0421 (some sort
of correction factor for line losses I guess).

Does your cost of 7 cents include ALL miscellaneous charges and taxes?

Posted by Dr. Hardcrab on December 23, 2007, 10:38 pm


>
> Again the controller issue. Has anyone ever seen a data sheet for
> these motors?
>
> Has anyone considered that the controller is built into these motors,
> and maybe they have just a few control lines for speed selection -
> that can easily be rigged up for manual control (or set to run at a
> constant speed) ???


http://www.nailor.com/pdf/ECM_1.pdf


http://www.enviro-tec.com/pdf/catalog/HP-FanPerformanceECM.pdf


http://www.eere.energy.gov/buildings/appliance_standards/residential/pdfs/furnaces_boilers/furnace_boiler_app8_7.pdf




Posted by Some Guy on December 23, 2007, 11:16 pm
"Dr. Hardcrab" wrote:

> > Again the controller issue. Has anyone ever seen a data sheet
> > for these motors?
> >
> > Has anyone considered that the controller is built into these
> > motors, ...

> http://www.nailor.com/pdf/ECM_1.pdf
>
> http://www.enviro-tec.com/pdf/catalog/HP-FanPerformanceECM.pdf

The above two are more like sales sheets or flyers, not really data
sheets with pinouts and wiring diagrams.

But still, they confirm that the controllers are built into the
motors, and they can either be set to run at constant speed, or
constant air flow (not sure how exactly they can sense airflow), or
they can take a control voltage (2-10V) which is trivial to set up
next to a thermostat.

If I had one of those, I'd tinker with it to see if I could get it to
run off a DC supply. A DC battery backup would keep a motor like this
running during winter power failures. I bet there are some in the
plains and mid-west who know all about winter power failures.

"Most variable speed electronic devices, including the ECM
operate with a rectified and filtered AC power. As a
result of the power conditioning, the input current draw
is not sinusoidal; rather, the current is drawn in pulses
at the peaks of the AC voltage. This pulsating current
includes high frequency components called harmonics."

So these motors are likely to radiate RF/EM noise if filtering isin't
used (and given manufacturing price pressure I wouldn't count on these
having proper filtering).

And one more thing - the power utilities really like these non-linear
loads - NOT!

"ECM (tm)"

Someone trademarked "ECM" ? Are you kidding?

>
http://www.eere.energy.gov/buildings/appliance_standards/residential/pdfs/furnaces_boilers/furnace_boiler_app8_7.pdf

Yea, I've seen that one before.

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