It can be difficult to narrow down which motor is best for your severe duty application. In this episode, key account manager for mining, aggregate, and cement Marc Psaltis, offers insights gained in his 29 years of industry experience and expertise on what criteria to use when selecting the right motor.
Learn more about Baldor-Reliance Crusher Duty motors
Learn more about Baldor-Reliance Severe Duty motors
It can be difficult to narrow down which motor is best for your severe duty application. In this episode, key account manager for mining, aggregate, and cement Marc Psaltis, offers insights gained in his 29 years of industry experience and expertise on what criteria to use when selecting the right motor.
Learn more about Baldor-Reliance Crusher Duty motors
Learn more about Baldor-Reliance Severe Duty motors
Welcome to the ABB Solutions Podcast, where we speak with our experts on how to solve problems you face in the industry. Our goal being to help keep you running safely and efficiently. I'm your host, Mike Murphy speaking to you from Greenville, South Carolina. I'm excited to be speaking with Marc Psaltis, key account manager for Mining Aggregate and Cement. Marc has 29 years in the industry, which includes field expertise with motors, mechanical power transmission products, and variable frequency drives. Welcome, Marc. Hey, I am really appreciate being here today. Yeah, great having you. Alright, our topic today is Selecting the Right Motor in your Severe Duty Application. Marc, I'm looking in the 501 catalog, and this there's a huge section on Severe Duty motors, for example, Severe Duty 841. XL. Can you walk us through when you would select a specific type of motor out of that section?
Marc Psaltis:Yeah, you know that in the in the Baldor 501, you know, there's a lot of, there's a lot of motors in there, right. And we do have them broken down into different categories. And even in the severe duty category, it really offers several different motors, for different applications, and different criteria that an application might be in. So, it's real important to kind of narrow it down, and understand really which one to use. I'm looking at the catalog right now as well. So my eyes are what our listeners might be seeing, at the same time. But under the severe duty category, really, really what that means is you've got a motor that is going to meet all the electrical standards and criteria in efficiencies of today's requirements. But at the same time, there are mechanical features built into these motors to make them last and survive in severe environments. The caveat there is, you know, there's a lot of different severe environments. There's, there's severe environments, maybe where it's really wet, a lot of slurry. There's severe environments where it sees a lot of chemical exposure. And then there's severe environments, where it might see dust, dirt, mud, and moisture, such as an aggregate facility, or a cement facility. So it's really important to really understand what kind of environment it's going in. And when you get that figured out, we've got several different choices of motors that are going to be the best for that application.
Mike Murphy:I also see in that section, a motor called Crusher Duty. Can you go into that? What kind of applications would this motor fall into?
Marc Psaltis:I can, but you know, Mike, before I jump into that, it just let's round this out a little bit more. With n severe duty, we've got what e call an ECP series. That's o r basic severe duty, right. B t then we also have 841 serie. That's another severe du y product. Let me let me ju t touch on those a little b t before we jump into the crush r duty. So that the ECP series n the Baldor catalog, gener l purpose, severe duty. So I ha e to use the word general purpos, but that's the kind of catch-a l, cover-all. For r ugh applications, you need e tra mechanical protection. Yet you get all the efficiency, and all the other electrical perform nce that you'd expect out f a Baldor motor at the hig est levels. At the 841 is a ste up from that ECP series. So an 41, it has everything an ECP w uld have but it's got a w ole laundry list of additi nal features. And frankly, bene its, right built into it su h as shaft run out; foot flat ess; some of the electrical de igns are a little bit sharper aybe than others. There's, I' not going to go into all f it because we're not gonna e're not here to talk about 841s but 841s were originally deve oped to go on the chemical oi and gas industry. If you think bout it, in that industry, ther are a lot of pumps, right. Y u've got a pump a lot of fluid And that fluid, especially i the oil market, is very expen ive. You can't afford to have downtime. So, in the case o like an 841, they have a five y ar warranty attached to it. No other motors have that kind of warranty. But there are reas ns for that; there's a lot, a ot of feature built into an 41 motor. It gets back to he original conversation. You kn w, "Which one should I go w th here?". I mean, I know. We h ve customers that buy 841 tod y, just because it has a fantas ic seal on both ends of the mot r. That seal cannot be beat. T ey buy it strictly for that reas n. They really don't need shaft un out. They really don't need f ot flatness. Those are some of he features that are built in or that original oil and as industry. A lot of times th se motors are connected to a pu p, which might be three times th cost of the motor. We're a motor builder, right, so we think our motors can be very expensive, and they can be. Bu at the same time, the pump tha is connected to could be muc more in dollars. To have a moto that is out of balance o doesn't meet a certain criteri as far as tolerances, would b really bad to connect to tha pump. So that's the 841 story We don't see that too much i aggregate. Sometimes we see i in cement. But did that reall lives in the pumping world Anywhere you've got critica pumping. Let's jump into th crusher duty. That's what do yo wanted to talk about today
Mike Murphy:So, yeah, there's also a crusher duty section. It mentions high starting torque applications. Can you talk to
us:what are, what does that mean high starting torque applications?
Marc Psaltis:Let me let me go back in history. I mean, you mentioned I've been my bio, 29 years. And yes, I guess I've been doing this for a long time. And I've been around motors the entire time. And through, through at least my career as Reliance, early on, and then as Baldor, we never had a crusher duty style motor. We had severe duty motors, right, like we just talked about. But we never had the one that had the extra torque built into it, just like today's crusher duty. That was developed, simply because in the industry that we're talking about, say aggregates primarily, you've got situations where you need that extra torque. You got to get through; you got to power through some of the situation that happens on the site. For instance, crushers, hence the name, they sometimes they have to start fully loaded. Sometimes, there are surges, maybe an operator, lets a little too much material flow through the system, more than it's designed for, and it has to be able to withstand these additional surges, without saying, "Uh oh, I've had enough, I'm turning off " or "I'm tripping out" or "I'm overheating". And, besides just initial surges, but there could be overload conditions where it just gets worse and worse and worse as far as overload or too much material. And it's gonna, motors are not smart animals, okay. Motors will continue to run and they'll continue to push. The more you throw at them, the harder they work; but there is a breaking point to everything. In a crusher duty motor that broke, the breaking point is just a little higher, and in some cases a lot higher than standard motors. Hopefully that makes sense. It just has a little more oomph when it needs it.
Mike Murphy:Yeah, it does. Okay, can you give other examples of applications where you might see a crusher duty motor.
Marc Psaltis:You know, we named it crusher duty, and its primary purpose initially was for crushers. But you know, we've extended this line all the way down to five horsepower, which you really don't see. If you look at some of our competitors, they don't use the same electrical design that we use. And we'll get into that a little bit later, maybe. But we use the same design throughout the whole line that we call crusher duty. So, really what that means is even in a five horsepower motor, which you might see on a conveyor, or something smaller, we've got the same torque profile and the same electrical design that would be used on a crusher. So that's got to tell you something, it's got some ruggedness to it; it's going to deliver extra torque when it needs it. Conveyors, sand screws, screen decks, all these high torque applications within the aggregate sites require motors that have a little extra torque behind them. Because they're all going to occasionally start loaded, they're all gonna see surges and they're all gonna be in overload situations. Pretty much every application other than maybe some specific pumps on site would be a great candidate to use the crusher duty motor from Baldor.
Mike Murphy:So, you mentioned more oomph. What about this motor gives it that, yeah, extra oomph?
Marc Psaltis:I'm gonna keep this real basic, okay, but within the world of motors, there are different electrical designs. And if you're familiar with Baldor, or at all you know,
Mike Murphy:Is this crusher duty motor connected the same you're probably familiar with our general purpose motor line. Those are those gold motors you see everywhere. They're fantastic. They're leaders in efficiency, they're leaders i quality and they are all what w call Design B, okay. The h ghest electrical design that's c rrently available as far as e ficiency in that particular s yle motor. But there are also ther designs available. The c usher design is a Design A. S Design A has a higher startup t rque capability, or s arting torque. It has a higher ull up torque, and it has a hig er breakdown torque. If you w re to look in our catalog or b ochures, we publish that informa ion or at baldor.com and you f nd the motor you're looking fo. You know it will all be the e. You'll find that with our c mpetitors as well. And I woul, I would say, take a look at bo h, take a look at the torque da a from ours to theirs. It's very comparable. And in many case, we've kind of raised the bar, ith this with this product. So it's the way the motor is designed per its electric l curve. And Design A is the n wer product. It has a higher t rque rating across the board th n a Design B. And at the same ime, it's a modern Design A, it has a higher efficienc way as the severe duty and 841. rating, then maybe we've see in the past as well. So we're ot only providing a little mo e torque, or a lot more torq e in some cases, but we're doi g it as efficiently as as physic
Marc Psaltis:It is. It's, I mean, it's connected, standard lly possible within the motor electrical connections are standard electrical connections, right. I mean, like L-1, L-2, L-3, the electricians out there will understand that as far as connections. But what makes it really different, is we do a few things in all of our severe duty products. So now we're back to just a general category, which crusher duty exists in. We take our leads from the inside of the motor, right, and those are soldered to the what we call the coil heads inside of the motor. And those are the wires that you see coming through the conduit box. Well, we make sure on every severe duty product that those wires are separated. I call it an octopus. I probably the technical term is lead separator, a lot of companies call them different things. Imagine, take your fingers and just kind of make a make a cup with your hand so your fingers are sticking up. Imagine wires coming through each one of your fingers. Okay, and your fingers don't touch together. So that's what we do, coming from the motor internally, to into the conduit box, which is the external. We keep those leads separated. And when you think about it, in an aggregate application, or at an aggregate site, things are moving; things are shaking; rocks are falling; even just crushed rock, even finds, fine powder on a conveyor. There's a certain amount of vibration that's happening in the whole system. We do everything we can to protect the motor against that vibration, the number one failure mode that we typically see is lead failure through the motor body to the conduit box. That's one reason we address that. That is a is a very common failure point for electrical wires to rub. And for the copper to be exposed. And once that happens, all bets are off. I like to call it letting the magic blue smoke out of the motor. A lot of people in the business have heard that before. But it's true. A lot of folks don't know what is on the inside of the motor. So all you need to know is there's a lot of magic blue smoke that makes it work. But if something happens, and that blue smoke comes out, you're done. And lead failure is probably the number one reason for that. It just will hurt you every time. So, having those leads protected is very important. And we do that not only in our NEMA series, so five horse through 400 horse. But we also do that even to a further extent in our 580 series or 586, 587 crusher motors. They're actually bolted and separated in place. And with a whole different system.
Mike Murphy:What's different on the above NEMA frame motors?
Marc Psaltis:NEMA stops at what we call a 449 frame. Okay, and for us that's in a 400 horsepower motor. In this industry, there's a whole other series of frames, called the 580 series that have been essentially adopted by the industry; have for years. Baldor recently, within the last few years, we've rounded out our crusher duty motor line by adding these 586/587 frame motors: 250 horse up through 500 horse. And of course we can go a little bit beyond that and build them for you. But as a stock product, we've got them up through 500 horse, which is pretty nice to have, and available. These are form-fit-and-function drop-in for any other 586/587 motor. But there's one one area where we really differentiate ourselves from the pack and that is at our connection points. Now we talked about connections in the NEMA series and that that octopus or lead separator. With the 586/587 conduit box geometry and architecture is actually completely different. It's very user friendly. The wires come up through the motor body into the top of the motor where the conduit box sits. Those leads are actually bolted in place and separated. So, we have no chance of those leads coming together and rubbing together. You can imagine Mike, on a application like a crusher, how those things might get bounced around, right. They're going to be moving and shaking. And you don't want those wires moving. Well, we've, we've solved that problem, they're not moving, they can't. They are bolted in place. And then from that point, we those are bolted right to a common lead lug system, which comes up into the conduit box. And that's where we make our L1, L2, L3 connections. And we simply bolt to that. So no longer do we have the black tape balls, and connectors where everything's taped together. And when you go to change out crusher motor, you need to have a case of electrical tape with you; don't have to do that anymore. It's a very simple process to bolt the motor in place through its leads and unbolt it when you have to later on. We have some of that information on-line. We'd certainly be able to talk to you at any point, if you'd like to know more about it. It's a groundbreaker for us, and it really it rounds out our crusher duty line.
Mike Murphy:That's great. Sounds like they thought about everything through easier installation, as well as you could argue that that kind of adds an element of safety as well.
Marc Psaltis:You know, as well as I do at ABB, whenever we build or design a product, we not only build it to perform its function, but we try to build it to make it safer, maybe than something else that's been out there or even our own products in the past. Safety is very big in ABB and we try to build it in every product and make it easy to maintenance. I think you'll find that with with our motor products, especially in the crusher duty line.
Mike Murphy:Right, absolutely. Okay, so my last question: are there any special considerations when selecting a severe duty motor, depending on its connection method, whether it's belted, coupled or direct mounted?
Marc Psaltis:In this marketplace, or in aggregate specifically, or when using a crusher duty motor, you're going to come across applications that are primarily belted, using v-belts. But you're also going to come across applications where we have a what we call a direct connection, right. So there's usually a coupling in between the motor and a driven shaft. You've got to be real careful when choosing the motor to use, especially on a crusher. We have NEMA rated crusher, duty motors, and we have the 586 crusher, duty motors. Generally, you know a lot of the customers, and our sales people will look at the motor and look at the frame size and say okay, frame size is right size, let's just replace it. And yes, that's step one, that's the easiest way to go. But, to really do it correctly, you've got to take a look at what the belt pull is. You've got to look at the current belt sheave arrangement. So get your diameter of your driver sheave and then your diameter of your driven sheave. How many belts it is. And get with your Baldor sales rep and say hey, can you have your engineering run this for us to make sure it's the motor you want to sell me is going to work. There's tremendous loading that happens on that shaft. And we just don't want to be in a situation where it's not the right choice. That maybe we should be looking at the next frame size up or whatever it might be, or moving into the 580 series. Generally, whenever it's a belted application, you should automatically think roller bearing. Okay, the roller bearing will take up a much higher load than a ball bearing. Okay. Now, I just said that but up through 50 horsepower, in the NEMA crusher duty line, they come as ball bearings. And you think okay, well, he just said, gotta use a roller bearings. Well, these are oversized ball bearings in this product line. And the bearings have been selected to handle most every v-belt application that could probably be put on them. So you're more or less safe, selecting a motor that's 50 horse or left less I'm sorry, and putting a v-belt drive on it. But, when you get larger than that, you do want to do a little more homework. If you replace a motor with a roller bearing you go right back in with a motor with a roller bearing. So it makes sense.
Mike Murphy:It makes sense. That's actually all the time we have. Marc thank you for speaking with us on Selecting the Right Motor in Your Severe Duty Application. Remember, if you have any further questions, ask your local ABB sales representative or of course visit us at www.abb.com. Thanks everyone and have a great rest of your day.