... everyone has them and they really could use a good wiping now and then.

The more we talk to potential consumer customers, the more they forward us to their friends that have industrial or light manufacturing shops. The more we talk to those folks, the questions we get about a three-phase solution. We spent the first few conversations thinking "No - silly - our device is for little grinders, not huge industrial machinery."

But then, something magical happened - we remembered that we were presumptive idiots and began to test some of our assumptions. It turns out that there is this whole world of relatively small three-phase bench grinders like this Dayton model or this Jet model. Now why on earth would you make a fractional horsepower grinder compatible with 3-phase 480V service!? It draws only 1.1 amps at that voltage! 

While we haven't answered that particular question yet, it has become very apparent that these small industrial three-phase grinders need love more than the single-phase consumer models we had originally targeted. We therefore have an announcement ...

Grinder Minder is now Poly-AmorousPhase and is Going Industrial

And as luck would have it, this makes our job easier, for two main reasons. First, poly-phase circuits draw less current per phase so we can downsize our electronics even further. Second, poly-phase motors don't have start capacitors, run capacitors, or centrifugal switches ( >2 phases = directional starting torque) so we don't have to mess with the impact of those variables or worry about capacitor fatigue. All in all ... we're golden. 

This is a mind-shift for us so we're going to go back to the drawing board to - you guessed it - validate the assumptions we made when designing as a consumer device. Once we identify some new hardware we'll back with more news. We did find this beautiful honey though ... 

And no - not the sleepy greyhound - the compact, 4 pole, PCB-mountable, UL508 Recognized, 5HP capable relay. I think I'm in love.