Cooking For Engineers

[tocoti]

Hello
I make chocolate and needed some help building a tool.
I have a chocolate melter 12x19x4. I would like to fit it with a "wheel" but don't know how to calculate motor size. It needs to be able to turn a 12 in disc emersed in 4 in of chocolate at about 1 rpm. so it's pulling about 1-2 lb of chocolate on a disc vertically. Any thoughts?

[Dilbert]

... odd thoughts . . .

fractional hp - try 1/4

first - if you're in a commercial setting, needs to meet wash down / sanitary regs. puts a big crimp on the selection.....

second, gearing down a 1800+/- rpm std 60 Hz motor to 1 rpm will provide more torque and power than you ever want to get your hand caught in.

third, go not undersize. one could presume this motor will run for hours at a clip. too small could lead to over heating.

it's not like you're going to save couple million on a 0.1189650 hp motor vs a 0.25