[TowerTalk] Capstan Winch

[Denis Coolican]

I noted that Capstan winches come up once and a while on TowerTalk.  Well I built one that is powered by a 120 volt motor / gear box combination that is rated to lift 500 pounds. The engineering details and pictures are on the web site at http://www3.telus.net/ve6fi/cqww%202007%20contest_1.htm   Possibly some of you may be thinking of building one. 

The AC motor is running at a power factor of 0.6 which is rather low. I was wondering if this was typical for a 3/4 HP motor. I calculate that I would need 170 mfd of non polarized capacitors rated at 8 amps to bring the power factor to 0.9 

The reason I would like to bring the power factor closer to unity is to reduce the line current.  Anyone have any experiences with this.

Denis ve6aq with Ve6fi