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1 phase vs 3 phase
When it comes to ice cream machines or any type of electrical equipment you may hear the term 3 phase power thrown around. While it's not necessary to have a degree in electrical engineering you will want to have a basic understanding of their differences. In short, single phase or 1 ph means you have 2 legs of 115v power available that make up your 200v. Three phase or 3 ph means that you have 3 legs of 115+v power to make up your 200v. That's confusing and there's a longer more scientific explanation but those are the basics. What this means bottom line is that when purchasing a machine you need to check what power you have available. Single phase is the more common of the two and is your standard residential power, its available basically everywhere. 3 phase however is not available in all locations and can be very expensive to have brought to a building that does not have it. In places where 3 ph is not available at all you can purchase devices that will essentially add a leg of power to whats there but these are also very costly. The best thing to do is to buy a machine that has the correct power for your store. You may be thinking that 1 phase is better because its more common but the truth is that when available 3 phase is actually more efficient and will run less amps than single phase. Also 1 phase machines must utilize capacitors to help "boost" things like motors and compressors to start and run. The reason all of this is important, as mentioned above, single phase is more common. We've seen many times people who have 3 phase equipment for sale on the second hand market try and hide the fact a machine is 3 phase until someone who doesn't know purchases it without knowledge of the difference. At Dukes Parlor we want to sell you a piece of equipment that will work for you without the headaches of having to solve power issues. To ensure this we ask that you always verify your power type before we take an order. We may not always have the single phase machine you need but we'd rather you be informed of the issue upfront than promised something false.