I am trying to perform some experiments with a motor and I want to run it under realistic conditions (or at least not unloaded). Is there an easy way to load a motor?
A couple ideas I had include: attach water paddles to paddle water continuously, attach pulley to lift weight, clamping brake pads (getting desperate), ...
I am working with a 1/3 HP three-phase motor.
You could couple the motor to an electric generator equipped with braking resistors. This is how dynos driven by test vehicles are slowed down.
Attach a flat paddle across the axle that moves against the air.
(image source: woodgears.ca)
You could use almost anything as a load. As has been mentioned before, a brake would work, so would a second motor, driven as a generator with a bank of power resistors as a load (They can get nice and toasty). A variable pitch propeller in air would work, varying the pitch would change the load. So would a centrifugal pump circulating a fluid, if you had a flow control valve opening and closing it would vary the load. The possibilities are pretty much wide open.
Personally, I think the easiest to implement would be using a second motor and a resistor bank, but that's mostly because that's what I did way back when I was in college.
