AoFrio’s Wellington ECR motors and fans may be part of the company’s oldest product line but are still one of the most popular.
Recently on show at EuroShop 2023 in Dusseldorf, our tradeshow team reported that the fans and motors section was often the first place that visitors to the AoFrio stall gravitated towards.
“At a very basic level, people understand the importance of fans and motors in commercial refrigeration,” says Peter Barnes, Product Manager at AoFrio. “That’s what grabs their attention.”
“And in over 20 years in this industry, we’ve sold nearly 15 million ECR motors. These are a proven, drop-in replacement for shaded pole Q-frame and unit bearing motors that have been used in commercial refrigerators for many years.”
“One key reason for their success is that our ECR motors use two-thirds less power than the shaded pole models. That works out to about 15,700,000 MWh of power saved since we began.”
In addition to the second-generation ECR 2 which can operate with up to 13W of power, AoFrio was pleased to announce the development of a new model, the ECR 2+ in Dusseldorf. This motor will operate with up to 25W and will continue to deliver the additional benefits that existing customers are used to including variable speeds, universal voltages, and sinusoidal control for quiet operation.
“In addition to pre-set operation modes our motors can be reconfigured in real time, in the field,” says Mr. Barnes. “That reduces the set-up complexity for OEMs, service technicians and engineering service companies performing in-store retrofits.”
AoFrio's Universal Programmer or Uniprog can be connected to the ECR 2 motor to configure the speed, direction, and timed behaviours.
“As our company continues to develop our range and the connections that are possible through it, I’m really excited by the possibilities this presents to our more traditional customers.”
“For example, if a customer connects AoFrio’s SCS controller to a Wellington motor in the same cooler, they can use our platform to configure variable speeds in real-time, gain insights into the evaporator and condenser temperature, and control the 5V frequency signals. That’s a lot of customisations for a device that already delivers so much by default.”