Electric Forklift Engines

Electric Forklift Engines – Electric forklifts are an ideal solution for indoor application, particularly in more hygienic or sensitive applications such as the pharmaceutical, food and beverage industries. Compact, unobtrusive and highly maneuverable, these forklifts are purpose built for operations in and around large facilities such as warehouses, factories and manufacturing plants.

Compare Forklift Prices and save up to 30%!

Compare Forklift Prices and save up to 30%!

History of Electric Forklift Engines

Motors find the most practical use in our every day life in form of modern gadgets, devices and appliances. There is no exact date that can be traced back to being the exact day of modern day motor invention. It has been a gradual process with many prominent names and contributions from the scientific world. Starting way back, today we have progressed to develop nanoelectromechanical systems that promise to be the future miniature form of motors.

The core function of electric motors is to convert electrical current into mechanical force. The history of motors can be related to times when fundamentals of electromagnetic induction were introduced. In early 1800, three popular scientists Oersted, Faraday and Gauss came up with the basic principals of electromagnetic induction.

In 1820, Andre Ampere and Hans Oersted made the most fascinating invention. They discovered that electric current produces magnetic field leading to the invention of the basic DC motor some ten years later. No body in particular is acclaimed with the sole invention of the DC motor, as it was a gradual process with involvement of many people

Michael Faraday from England set to prove the theory proposed by Ampere and Oersted. In 1921, he successfully demonstrated in his experiment by converting electrical energy into motion. His motor was made of a free-hanging wire that was plunged into a puddle of mercury. A permanent magnet was placed in the centre of the mercury pool. On passing through the wire, it rotated around the magnet. It proved that the current resulted in a circular magnetic field around the wire. This is the simplest form of electric motor.

Ten years later, it was Joseph Henry who built an improved motor based upon Faraday’s experimental motor. He constructed a device whose rotating part was an electromagnet with a horizontal axis. The motion resulted in two vertical permanent magnets, alternately attracted and repelled at end of the electromagnet. This made the magnet sway back and forth at 75 cycles per minute.

Till this stage, use of electromagnetic field in motors was restricted to lab experiments. A major development took place with William Sturgeon’s invention of commutator. He is credited with the discovery of first rotary electric motor. Sturgeon made use of horseshoe electromagnets to build rotating and stationary magnetic fields. His shunt wound DC motor was the first to produce a continuous rotary motion using all essentials of modern-day DC motors.

Another early electric motor design used a reciprocating plunger inside a switched solenoid; an electromagnetic version of a two-stroke internal combustion engine. A remarkable fact points that the modern day version of motor was actually an accident. In the year 1873, Zénobe Gramme accidentally linked a spinning dynamo to a similar unit, driving it as a motor.

The accident proved to be successful. And the journey of development started from then on. There are many amusing facts and chapters in the development of the present day motor. Motor is the core of many hi-tech electronic, electro-mechanical and electrical gadgets all over the world.

How Motors Work

After reflecting upon the brief history of Electric Forklift Engines motors, we can shift our focus to its operations. How do motors work? It helps to understand that the basic principle of electric motor is based upon electromagnetic induction. To put it simply, motors use electromagnetic fields to generate motion. Electric motors function on the principle of magnetism— like poles repel, and opposite poles attract. The direction of current flow can be changed in one of two ways.

Magnets and magnetism is the base for any motor to work. At large motors are of two types- DC and AC. In a basic DC motor, there is a fixed magnet on the outside called the field magnet and inside lies an armature that carries current. As soon as the current passes through the wired armature, it turns into an electromagnet with opposite polarity as of the field magnet. This repulsion causes the armature to rotate.

So, we need to create a perpetual opposing magnetic field between the axel and the field magnet. Generally the armature is nothing but a piece of a good conductor with copper wire coiled over it. When current passes through the armature, it turns into an electromagnet and the repulsion causes it to rotate. Here, we reach a situation where after half rotation the electromagnet gets stuck as the opposite poles attract each other. To overcome this, one would need to flip the current in order to obtain perpetual opposite magnetic poles. This is achieved with use of commutator and brushes.

Commutator is attached to the axle of the electromagnet, so that they spin along with the magnet. The brushes are just two pieces of springy metal or carbon that make contact with the contacts of the commutator. The key is that as soon as the armature passes over the maximum flux of the field magnet, the poles of the electromagnet must flip. 

Because of the flip, the North Pole of the electromagnet is always in line with North Pole of field magnet that keeps the armature under constant repulsion. Up till now, we have been talking about bipolar motors. These motors can get stuck if after halting, the commutators are not in contact with the brushes. This demanded more than two poles in an armature and the motors henceforth should have many poles to suit various power and RPM requirements.

The AC motors on the other hand have the advantage of auto-change of polarity due to alternating current. The electric motors run smoothly at the frequency of the sine wave and are also called synchronous motor. Most common AC motors are induction type. This means that no current passes through the armature coils and electric current is induced in the rotating coils rather than being supplied to them directly. An induction motor must achieve a rotating magnetic field to continue to exert a torque on the armature coils, while extra coils on the pole pieces achieve the rotating field.

This explains the way motors work and the cause of rotation. Based upon these basic principle, the motors have evolved and come a long way. The modern-day motors are much lighter, cost-efficient and productive. Right from microwave ovens, furnace blowers, fans, screwdrivers to radio antennas—motors are used almost everywhere.

Types of Motors

Electric Forklift Engines motors are practically used everywhere round us. Starting with your kitchen fan, microwave oven, refrigerator, vacuum cleaners, hair dryers to car heaters and radiators, everything uses a motor. Following are the main types of motors,

AC Motor

There are two main types of Electric Forklift Engines AC motors. The most popular and simple motor is the three-phase AC induction motor. It is also known as the squirrel cage motor. The synchronous motor rotates at exactly the supply frequency or submultiples of the supply frequency. A typical AC motor consists of two parts:

• An exterior stationary stator with coils that uses AC current to produce a revolving magnetic field
• An interior rotor linked to the output shaft that employs torque using the rotating field

Stepper Motors

Stepper motor is an electro-mechanical device that converts electrical current into torque output. It popularly finds application as a positioning device for precision control. The motor works by converting electrical impulses into distinct mechanical rotatory motion. Normally this motion of a stepper motor is measured in degrees, or in steps.

DC Motor

While an electric motor converts electrical energy into mechanical force, the reverse if true for DC motor. DC motors convert mechanical force into electrical energy with the use of a generator or dynamo. DC motors can be primarily divided into Brushed DC motors and Brushless DC motors

Brushed DC motors

The brushed DC motor has an ancient history. In this type of motor, a permanent magnetic field is produced in the stator with the help of permanent magnets or electro-magnetic windings. If the field is created by permanent magnets, the motor is called a permanent magnet DC motor. If it is generated using electromagnetic windings, the motor is named as Shunt wound DC motor.

Brushless DC motor

A brushless DC motor is an electric motor with similar operations as the DC motor. The only difference is that the role of rotor and stator are inverted in the brushless DC motor. The motor’s rotor has a set of permanent magnets while the stator here consists of electromagnets. As the name suggests, the motor does not use brushes, but the function of commutator takes place by an electronic circuit. It switches the current to various stator coils as and when required.

Linear Motor

A linear motor is essentially an electric motor with an unrolled stator. It results in the Linear motor producing linear force along its length instead of conventional torque as in other motors.

Servo motor

Servo is a tiny Electric Forklift Engines motor with specific function. This motor can select between vertical or horizontal polarization. Popularly used for motion controls in electronic gadgets and robots and computer hard disc drives, the motor works more like an alternator. It uses special circuit to make them rotate electrically. Some servomotors are used in reverse to generate AC current.

Frequently asked Questions

Q: Who is Nikola Telsa?
A: Nikola Telsa was a world-acclaimed physicist, mechanical engineer and an avid scientist from Serbia. His theoretical work bases the fundamental of modern alternating current electric power (AC) systems, including the polyphase power distribution system and AC motor.

Q: What are the main parts of the simple motor?
A: Any simple electric motor consists of 6 main components,

DC power supply
Armature or rotor
Commutator
Brushes
Axle
A field magnet

Q: What is a single-phase AC synchronous motor?
A: The single-phase AC synchronous motor rotors work without require any induced current. This ensures that the rotors do not slip backward against the mains frequency and rotate in synchrony with the mains frequency. Because of generation of highly accurate and measurable speed, these motors are used in tape drives, power mechanical clocks, strip-chart recorders, audio turntables etc.

Q: What are the advantages of a DC motor
A: In DC motors, controlling speeds is much easier, as higher the armature voltage, quicker will be the rotation. DC motors have a simple design and are easy to control torque owing to the proportionality of the output torque to current. Limited current will result in limited torque, which makes it easy to control speed. DC motors are usually used in textiles manufacturing.

Q: What are the advantages of a universal motor?
A: One of the major advantage is that AC supplies can be used on motors with typical DC motors features, particularly with high starting torque and very compact design, incase high speeds are being used.

Q: What are the main historical events in development of motor?

1821: Micheal Faraday demonstrated a motor powered by electricity
1837: First Patent by America for electric motor
1888: Nikola Tesla patented the induction motor
Recent: 1990s: Hybrid vehicles tested for running with an internal combustion engine and an electric motor charged by the previous engine to retain pick power usage.

Q: What is an EMD motor?
A: EMD are low voltage Permanent Magnet DC motors that are used for small electric vehicles. EMD work as a group/family rather than as individual motors.

Q: Who is Joseph Henry?
A: : An American scientist named Joseph Henry built an improved version based upon Michael Faraday’s rudimentary electric motor. He constructed a device whose rotating part was a electromagnet moving up and down on a horizontal axis. Pairs of wires projecting from its ends made alternate connections with the two electrochemical cells. This resulted in reversed polarity. This was the first systematic motor that resulted in 75 cycles per minute.