International Appliance Manufacturing 2008 - (Page 20) Rangehood Efficiency Improvements And Additional Functionality With Inverter Technology Increasing energy costs and environmental awareness due to the serious consequences of global warming are accelerating the introduction of energy labels that inform consumers about the energy efficiency of the major energy consuming home appliances (washing & drying machines, refrigerators, dishwashers etc.) as well as of other appliances such as vacuum cleaners, rangehoods etc. We can also expect EN norms that will require significantly higher efficiency levels as compared to those that the appliances feature today. Mr. Vojko Blažic head of motor controls R&D group, ATech elektronika d.o.o., Slovenia ˇ, Mr. Gregor Franic marketing director, ATech elektronika d.o.o., Slovenia ˇ, This article is focused on the presently available technologies for the improvement of the efficiency of the rangehood as well as on the many additional functions these new technologies offer. These are very low cost motor types with 2 major drawbacks: very low efficiency (SPAC motor typically less than 60%) and fixed or step speed levels. The actual technical solution for variable speed is to use a PSC motor with a special winding for each speed/power level (see table 1). A technical solution for stepless speed regulation would be to have a phase control drive with a PSC motor that was sometimes used in the past, but is very problematic in terms of efficiency (only around 30%), noise and especially in terms of Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC). all data at nominal speed efficiency without inverter efficiency with phase control speed regulation efficency with inverter noise level Table 1. Improvements on Existing Motor Technology Improvements of the Shaded Pole AC (SPAC) motor and Permanent Split Capacitor (PSC) motor performance are possible by the use of an inverter. The inverter changes the frequency and voltage supplied to the motor thus allowing very precise and silent speed regulation without sacrificing the efficiency. Depending on the motor, the efficiency improvements may vary (see table 1). As a specialist in electronic motor controls for home & professional appliances, ATech has expanded 3-ph ACIM N/A N/A 85% ++ BLDC N/A N/A >90% + PMAC N/A N/A >90% ++ Present Rangehood Technology Rangehoods are available in almost every imaginable shape and colour, from basic to highend, often also with cooktop illumination units. Usually, the user can select from among three levels, while the entry level products are a fixed power type. The high-end products typically have more sophisticated user interfaces such as capacitive keyboards and even displays indicating the weather forecast. However, the basic function – air aspiration or filtering – uses two motor technologies, Shaded Pole AC (SPAC) motors and Permanent Split Capacitor (PSC) motors. SPAC PSC <60% <70% 30% 35% <60% <70% 0 0 20 International Appliance Manufacturing 2008
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