Still learning

I have learned quite a bit about motors since setting out to rewind mine. First, I was wrong about my old motor being a 2 pole machine. It turns out that most 4 pole motors use something called consequent, or phantom poles, where there are 6 coil groups, 2 for each phase, so identical windings to a 2 pole motor. The difference is, the coil groups opposite each other (in the same phase) are wired to produce the same magnetic polarity, say North, in the air gap. This produces two consequent South poles at 90 degrees to the two North poles, making four total poles for each phase.

As far as the rewinding, I have put that off. I have bought a nicer motor-- aluminum frame, inverter duty, and will probably rewind eventually. For now, though, I will convert it from star to delta topology, which is as simple as bringing the central star point out in three leads. This has the effect of converting a 208 volt motor to 120 volts, meaning I can run at 3033 rpm instead of 1750 at full (240) volts. This means I can run the motor at 10 Hp continuous instead of the 5.5 rated. Since peak torque is roughly 2.5 times rated torque for a motor of this type, I should be able to get 25 Hp peak. How long I can keep that up will depend on my cooling scheme, which I haven't really settled.