Is it possible to convert 12 volts DC up to 460 volts AC?

Question

The idea is to power (for a short period of time) a 3 HP AC motor using a car battery. Sounds wierd, I know. As a layman, I am trying to figure out if this even a theoretical possibility. Any electrical guru's out there who can show off their expertise? Would be much appreciated!

Answer 1

It is easy to convert the 12VDC to 120VAC using a commercially available inverter. Once you have the 120VAC you can put it through a transformer to transform it to 460VAC.

The problem is that for the same power you need a lot more amps going into the lower voltage. If you want about 2000 watts to keep that motor going (not counting that you would need twice as much to get it started) the 5 amps on the 460V side would need 200 amps going into the 12V side. That is a lot of heavy wire and heavy duty equipment on the input side.

Answer 2

the respond is around 540 watts at a hundred and fifteen Volts. 50 amps at 12 volts converts to 5.2 amps at a hundred and fifteen volts. (think of 12 x 50 = a hundred and fifteen x 5.2, ability in = ability out) yet there is the inefficiency of the inverter (ninety-ninety 5%). Assuming ninety% as variety of a worst case, then your 12 volt dc amps pass to a minimum of a few thing like 11.a million amps (extra desirable performance is accessible with new instruments). As pronounced, inverters are no longer appropriate whilst convertering 12V into 115V. If the converter consumes 600W from the 12V battery (50ampsx12volts=600watts), then a ninety% effecient converter would generate 540W of 115V AC ability terrific case instead of 600watts. the different 60W is misplaced basically as warmth. yet consistently you ought to certainly deduct with the help of a 20% margin of blunders for the inductive transformers interior the digital equipments. as a fashion to be secure, you will basically have 600watt-30% = 420 watts comfortably used. cheers.

Answer 3

It is possible to do this but the expense would make it a waste of time. Probably the battery couldn't cope with 3hp anyway.

A quick calculation shows that you would need to pull about 200 Amps from the battery which is going to be tricky to say the least. A car battery might manage ten minutes in theory but might overheat after two or three.

The inverter for 2kW would also be hard to make and expensive. Besides, don't high voltage motors run on three phase which makes it even more tricky.

Answer 4

Not only would you have to overcome the issues described by the other responses, but 460V AC is 3-phase. This will require the use of a rotary phase converter.

The Full Load Current of a 3-phase, 460V motor is 4.8 amperes. In order to obtain this, you will need approximately 3kW of 120Volt power on the primary of converter.

Using standard conversion formulas, you will need approx. 250A from the battery to produce 3kW at 120V.

It's a losing proposition every wall you look at it.

Answer 5

hg