When we moved to our California townhouse some years back we purchased a new Maytag Neptune frontloading washer and the corresponding drier. This was back when the model was first introduced. Unfortunately, there were some serious design flaws with that model and the one we bought finally went beyond repair a couple months back.
It had an electronically-controlled variable-speed motor which was still working fine. So before shipping it off for recycling I decided to snag the motor for a small mill. ("Free" is the right price. B-) )
I cut the cables a foot or so away. (It has snap-in connectors so this gives me a place to splice.)
It's labled as a three-phase switched-reluctance motor and clearly has no magnets: There is no output when spun, no braking when the coils are shorted. Three independent coils are fed by six wires on one end, a three-wire connection to an optic encoder on the other. (The encoder has a single optic pickup and a code wheel that seems to involve a pseudo-random code sequence so it only needs one sensor.)
I fed it power from a ni-cad from a power screwdriver, through some very thin test jumpers (which also served as limiting resistors). This made it step (with very low torque - no doubt due to its high-voltage winding and the low current fed to it). It takes eight sets of three steps to go a full circle, which I take to indicate that it's an eight-pole.
Nameplate info:
PN 6 2702230
Model H55BMBJA-1820
Switched Reluctance
Autowasher Motor
Impedence Protected
Use only with controller
P/N 6 2702240 Ref 294901
- V Var speed
- 5A 3PH 50(degrees) C
Duty Cycle Max Ambient
- min on Ins. Class B
- min off
Haven't had it apart yet. (Need to clear the workbench first.) I expect conversion will consist of cutting away alternate poles and mounting magnets there same-pole-up, or cutting away all poles and mounting 8 rows of magnets in alternate up/down configuarion (with maybe a bit of twist to decog).
I figure with 8 poles and a 120V winding it should have a pretty low cutin (though the fact that it can be made to do a centrifugal extraction on the fast end of maybe a 20:1 belt drive might bode ill for that).
I also figure the wind will cool it enough that the duty cycle won't be an issue, so it would be good for about 4 amps in delta (or jerryrig) as wound, but that might be multiplied by a factor of two, four, or maybe even eight by cutting the coils apart and rewiring them in parallel or series-parallel combo for lower voltage and higher current.
So maybe 50W to a couple hundred if I'm lucky.
Thought about using a variant of the controller to excite it unmodified by feeding it magnetization power deliberately slow, so it would generate as it is overdriven by applied torque. Decided that would work but would have the same energy issues as exciting an alternator (such as excitation power consumption being highest when wind is lowest) so conversion was a need-to-do.
The motor mounts on two pivot pins molded into its end caps which go into holes on the washer guts' body (with rubber or plastic bushings) and one screw through the guts' body to hold it in place and position it to tension the belt. I salvaged the rubber bushings so I should be able to drill holes in the eventual mill, insert the bushings and mount the motor.
The pins are pointed the wrong way to resist wind force if it's built into an upwind mill without reversing the rotor and its shaft, leaving the holddown screw as the only support against the wind. I'll look into what can be done about that when tearing it down. (Has a pressed-on pulley for the drive belt so reversing it is problematic.) Might fix the issue by putting a block behind it to hold the motor forward when it's in positon.
Also salvaged the belt and enormous pulley, in case I want to do a VAWT.
Having done that, I realized that the guts of a front-load washer are almost all the guts of a belt-drive VAWT just sitting right there: Big mainshaft and bearing with a waterproof seal, suitable for considerable side-force (designed to support a basket full of wet laundry). High-ratio belt drive, motor mounted appropriately. Cut off the water tank, replace the basket with a set of turbine blades, add magnets to the motor, paint the molded plastic to protect it from the wind, put a water shield "umbrella" over the back of the motor and a sun-shade fingerguard around the belt, and you have a VAWT ready to stick on a platform. The pulleys and belt will be on the underside of the mounting plate, protected from wind, rain, and sun. The motor will stick up from the plate and block a little of the wind, but not all that much.
So if I get the chance before the junkman gets here I may pull the mechanical guts out of the washer and see if it's suitable.
