Electric Motors 

By on

Electrical motors are one of the most common items of electrical equipment in service today.  From toys and household appliances to the largest machines on the planet electric motors are used.  Motors as the single biggest users are estimated to account for between 43 and 46% of total global electricity use[1].

Given the widespread use of motors, it is not surprising that many of the posts on myElectrical deal with this topic.  This note is a collection of links to many of our motor notes and a few external resources.  I’ll try and return to the page every now and again to update it with any new notes which are added to the site.

Internal (myElectrical) Links

Induction Motor Calculator Tool – does motor calculations and provided a formulae reference

Motor Starting Time Tool - calculate the approximate starting time for asynchronous motors

Understanding electric motor insulation & temperature - in easy to understand form

How to Calculate Motor Starting Time Post – post which explains how to do this

Understanding Motor Duty Rating Post – explains IEC duty ratings

8 Motor parts and common faults Post – list of common motor faults

Motor Starting – Introduction – introduction to motor starting

Other Notes Articles

The internal links were last updated June 2015.  If your reading this note later, it may be worth using the site search to look for additional information which may have been added.

External Links

The following links are external to myElectrical and provided for reference only.

What is an electric motor? –  find the answer on answers.com

Basic motor theory -  ac motor, dc motor and generator theory

Electric Motor – Wikipedia's article on electric motors in general

AC motor – Wikipedia’s article (types of motor, history and some theory)

AC Industrial Electric Motors – RS datasheet (pdf download)

Two Speed Motors – a primer on two speed motors (motorsandrives.com)



Steven McFadyen's avatar Steven McFadyen

Steven has over twenty five years experience working on some of the largest construction projects. He has a deep technical understanding of electrical engineering and is keen to share this knowledge. About the author

myElectrical Engineering

comments powered by Disqus



Sony Pocket eBook Reader

For the past few years I have reading eBooks on my HTC touch phone. On and off I have debated buying an eReader and recently purchased a Sony PRS-300 ...

IEC 61439 Verification Methods

The (relatively new) switchgear and control gear standard, IEC 61439 'Low-voltage switchgear and controlgear assemblies' has three methods which can be...

Electrical Engineering

Electrical engineering is a field that covers a wide variety of sub-fields, including electricity and electronics. It is a field that goes back to the...

Lightning Risk Assessment (IEC 62305)

IEC 62305 'Protection against lightning' requires a risk assessment be carried out to determine the characteristics of any lightning protection system...

Thomas Edison

American inventor Thomas Alva Edison was born in Milan, Ohio on February 11, 1847. He was the youngest of seven children and received little formal schooling...

Induction Motor Equivalent Circuit

Induction motors are frequently used in both industrial and domestic applications.  Within the induction motor, an electrical current in the rotor is induced...

Differential protection, the good old days

This morning I was explaining how differential protection works to a junior engineer. To give him something to read I opened up the NPAG (Network Protection...

Meeting room of the future

The IET site has a video of a visit showing of a high tech meeting room developed at Napier University in Edinburgh. It a good demonstration of innovative...

A mechanical engineering paper, some history and memories

I was digging in my bookshelf and came across the 80th Anniversary Association of Mine Resident Engineers, Papers and Discussions Commemorative Edition...

IEC Reference Designations

The IEC publishes a series of documents and rules governing the preparation of documents, drawings and the referencing of equipment.   Depending on country...

Have some knowledge to share

If you have some expert knowledge or experience, why not consider sharing this with our community.  

By writing an electrical note, you will be educating our users and at the same time promoting your expertise within the engineering community.

To get started and understand our policy, you can read our How to Write an Electrical Note