An interactive tour of the induction motor: the rotating field made by flipping AC polarity, slip as the thing that creates torque, why low voltage means more current, and why the klixon eventually gives up. Drag the 3D views to orbit.
The amber/cyan/magenta blocks are the stator coils — their cores flash red (+) and blue (−) as the AC flips polarity, and together they spin the field bar. The cage bars glow with induced current: the more the rotor lags the field (slip), the brighter they burn. Rotor lag is exaggerated for visibility — real slip is only a few %.
The three coil currents. Each one just flips polarity 50×/s — the rotation only exists because they peak one after another. The moving line is "now".
Torque the motor can make vs rotor speed, at the voltage actually reaching it (dashed = at full 230 V). Flat line = load. The dot is the operating point: stable only on the right-hand slope. Left of the peak = the "heater pretending to be a motor" zone.
Same physics, unrolled flat. The magnet sweeps over the plate; the glowing loops are eddy currents induced only by relative motion, and they drag the plate along. Release the brake and the plate accelerates until it nearly matches the magnet — and the currents fade. That gap that never quite closes? That's slip. The brake is the compressor's back-pressure.
Copper has resistivity ρ ≈ 0.0175 Ω·mm²/m. The current travels out through the live wire and back through the neutral, so a 25 m cord is 50 m of copper. Resistance R = ρ · (2 × length) / cross-section, and the volts it eats is just Ohm's law, V = I × R.
= 0.0175 × (2×25) / 1.5 = 0.58 Ω= 10 A × 0.58 Ω = 5.8 VCoiled on a reel the same cord may only be rated ~1000 W: the turns can't shed their heat into the air (it's thermal, not inductance). Always fully unrolled.
Force = vacuum × sealed area, ceiling ≈ 10 N/cm² at perfect vacuum. The ÷2 and ÷4 aren't cup strength limits — they're uncertainty stacked up: robot acceleration, vacuum ripple, cups that miss the box, and peel cascades. Sideways it's worse because cups only hold shear through friction (μ·F).
The safety factor 2 ≈ 1.4 (decel spikes) × 1.25 (vacuum ripple between air-saving thresholds) × 1.25 (a few cups miss the box). If one edge cup lets go, its share lands on the neighbours — without margin that's a zipper failure.
One coil flipping polarity makes a field that only pulses — zero starting torque. Your compressor fakes a second phase with a start capacitor + auxiliary winding for the first second. That circuit works hardest exactly when voltage sags and the tank is full; a tired capacitor = humming, struggling, klixon trips on one twin but not the other.
A bimetal disc clamped to the windings snaps open around 140 °C. The button just closes it again — mechanically reusable hundreds of times. The damage is the event: insulation life roughly halves per 10 °C over its rating, so trip → reset → trip is slow-cooking the motor. Fix the cause, not the button.
That short pssht when the compressor stops is the unloader venting the pump head so the next start begins torque-free. If it's clogged, every start is "start against pressure" — try it in the simulator above and watch what the current does.