RE: (ET) Hedge clippers?

[JohnKelly oaktech com]

Larry, all,

In theory, re-winding the universal 110V hedge clipper for 36V. is not
complicated.  In practice, I suspect that anyone who tries it would be
frustrated by the fact that the garden variety hedge clippers are not
designed to be disassembled, reworked or repaired and put back together.
Most of these things are made as cheaply as possible which means they are
press fit, glued together and designed to be thrown away rather than
repaired.  If you can't  disassemble the clipper in question and observe
that the windings are accessible and easy to replace with heavier gage
wire, I think you would be much better of with a 36VDC to 110 VAC inverter.

                         John


                                                                           
                              
                    "Elie, Larry (L.D.)"                                   
                              
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                    .tufts.edu                         Subject:     RE: 
(ET) Hedge clippers?             
                                                                           
                              
                                                                           
                              
                    03/27/2000 06:34 AM                                    
                              
                                                                           
                              
                                                                           
                              




I tried a 'universal motor' hedge-clipper (actually designed with
appropriate field at 110V AC of course) on the ET over the weekend.
BTW, a normal 2 pole AC plug can be easily forced into the rear accessory
plug of the ET so the check was pretty easy.  The clipper operated fine,
albeit at a much reduced speed.  For light use it would be OK.  For the
heavy-duty work I'm expecting, it would not be really good enough.

The solutions are manifold.  An inverter and a normal hedge-clipper.  A
real ET hedge-clipper.  Or I could re-wind the motor of a 110V
hedge-clipper.
The latter isn't as hard as it sounds; you can easily measure the
non-loaded

AC current.  You can easily check the wire gauge of the coil when it is
apart.  You can accurately measure the resistance of the coil, which will
tell you the overall length from which you can compute the number of turns
or
probably easier for most people just accurately count the number of turns
as

you take off the old wire.  The field in the motor is proportional to the
number
of turns of wire times the current.  You want to match the field at the new
voltage.  There are tables of wire resistance, and you will end up with a
smaller number of turns of larger gauge wire at a higher current; the power
will
also end up the same.  The down side is the brushes and commutator may not
be
able to carry the increased current over a period of time.  This is all
time

consuming, but not at all impossible.  Still, I will try the other easier
approaches first.

Larry Elie