Motors

Single-phase induction motors

Single-phase motors are built with either squirrel cage or slip ring rotors, and in the latter
case the rotor is wound with a three phase winding, and brought out to three slip rings, as
is the case with an ordinary poly phase motor.

Squirrel cage motors are however, only built in small sizes, up to 2-3 kW. Neither the
squirrel cage nor the slip ring types have a starting torque greater than that of a poly
phase squirrel cage motor, and therefore will not start up against any appreciable load.

A single phase motor has about twice the size and weight of an ordinary three phase
motor of the same power output, and therefore is correspondingly more expensive. The
power factor of such a motor is always low, and at full load in a motor of moderate size,
will not be above 0,75.

A synchronous motor is different from an ordinary induction motor, as it will only run at
a fixed speed in step with the frequency of the supply, that is, it will only run at
synchronous speed. An induction motor, on the other hand, has to operate at some speed
below the synchronous speed, and for this reason an induction motor is often called an
asynchronous (not synchronous) motor.

The simple synchronous motor, also differs from the ordinary three phase induction
motor as so far as it is not self starting.