4 ms·
High voltage DC is hard to switch with mechanical switches, and you have to convert it back to AC to run motors(Unless you're willing to accept brushed motors),
by eternityforest 3y ago
High voltage DC is hard to switch with mechanical switches, and you have to convert it back to AC to run motors(Unless you're willing to accept brushed motors), so it wouldn't be trivial.
- Scoundreller 3y agoA lotta motors are moving to variable drive to have a continuous duty cycle and do that by internally converting whatever is coming in into AC. They should happily accept DC since they're just rectifying the AC anyway. My fridge is "inverter drive" and just runs continuously at a low duty cycle all day. Most heat pumps are like this too to dial up and down instead of strictly being on or off. (Unsure what voltage the motors are running at though, so maybe AC-in is preferred to step it down before rectifying and chopping)
- eternityforest 3y agoThat's pretty neat! Nobody I know has many appliances from the last 20yrs so I'm a bit out of the loop on those... I guess all we'd really need is reliable switches and breakers that could be made affordably, and connectors that didn't create a huge arc every time someone unplugged a running space heater? Still a pretty big challenge, the lack of arcing seems like a really big advantage.