New electric motor technology promises optimum efficiency and power over wide speed range

[Fumesucker]

http://axiflux.com/

The Axiflux® AMFA (pictured) has been in development since 2008 from Melbourne, Australia. The patent pending technology combines a number of significant and disruptive improvements to electrical motor/generator (machine) technology with a wide-ranging suite of applications. Prototype motors are currently being trialled in applications where this technology improvement is most needed.


The development of the AMFA began with the recognition that the electrical machine is the cornerstone of modern life and the facilitator of nearly everything in 21st century society. From generating electrical energy at our power stations to starting our cars in the morning, the humble electric motor/generator has changed relatively little over the past 100 years. The electrical machine generates over 90% of the world’s electricity and uses over 45% of it.

Traditional electric motors are efficient at particular speeds
and power requirements. As the speed or power is varied, the efficiency of the electric motor drops. To ensure that the device keeps operating at high efficiency, most are either run at particular speeds even when less will suffice (wasting energy), or are coupled to heavy and expensive gear boxes to help run the device at its peak efficiency. 90% of installed industrial motors run continuously at full speed and use mechanical systems to regulate (retard) output.

The key difference between the Axiflux® machine and its traditional counterpart is that the AMFA’s multiple coils can be controlled independently and intelligently by computer software that is able to use real-time optimization, artificial intelligence and neural network processing in order to respond to operating conditions. Depending on the operational requirements, a motor may be optimized for efficiency or power, at any time and for any speed. This compares to the traditional electric motor where the efficiency optimization was performed by engineers for a particular speed and built into the control system at the time of manufacture.

Considerably more information at the link.

[AnotherDreamWeaver]

1. Wonder what the film container looking things on the side are? nt

[wtmusic]

2. You never know when you're going to want a picture. nt

[hunter]

3. Axiflux has an exceptionally hideous website.

Word salad market-speak and irritating eye-candy.

I have no idea if their motor is any kind of breakthrough but their website makes me doubt it.

I see a picture of a motor. It looks like a hub motor, all ready to have a wheel bolted onto it.

Those black things hanging off of it, presumably electronics, look like good targets for road debris.

I could be wrong.

Pancake motors are described on wikipedia.

It's clear to me however that I've never had what it takes to attract the big money of the venture capitalists. No glitz. Just the facts.

Simple HTML.

But now I only seek revenge. Intellectual properties that someone else might have built commercial empires with, I give away.

I am the corrosion in the great marketing machines.

Information wants to be free!

[Fumesucker]

4. I'm pretty familiar with motors myself

Cedric Lynch is about as far from "marketing speak" as it's possible to get and he designed the brushed, axial flux Agni motor that's still being used in EV's including this one of his own. Cedric used cut up tin cans for the laminated stator on his first prototype motor, he practically defines "hacker".

http://www.agnimotors.com/home/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=47

[hunter]

7. Comparing what is possible to what we are forced or fooled into accepting is endlessly frustrating.

Our automobile culture of oversized, overweight, overpowered, extremely expensive, fossil fueled cars is especially awful.

I hate my cars. I resent having to own cars, I resent the money I spend on cars, I resent every minute I've wasted of my life entombed in a metal can disconnected from the world outside.

My wife and I have been fortunate that we've avoided daily commuting since the mid 'eighties. But everyone can't be so lucky. My oldest kid can't yet afford to live near his place of work. At his age my wife and I were both Los Angeles commuters for similar reasons.

And there are too many people in this nation isolated because they can't afford or otherwise participate in the automobile culture. Can't drive for whatever reason? Tough shit.

In my utopia most people won't bother to own cars. Those who do will mostly have cars that are very easy on the environment and as easy to maintain as bicycles, rather like Cedric Lynch's electric motorcycle.

I'm now living in the computer utopia I imagined as a kid. I have a supercomputer on my desk, made from junk and hand-me-downs, running free open source software, connected to a world wide web.

Maybe someday I'll see my transportation utopia, a place where somebody who buys a new car will put the old one out on the curb with a "FREE" sign on it, and it will be a mostly working car too. Push it home, add duct tape and a little imagination, plug it in to charge a few hours, and go. Just like I might add a compact flash "hard drive" to an old P3 laptop I found in the trash.

My laptop, the one I travel with, is exactly that. Something I found in the trash.

My cars are trashy too but I'd be a happier person if they were electrics.

[Fumesucker]

8. I built my own EV

http://www.democraticunderground.com/11282343

I haven't posted it yet but I just finished a 48V 10Ah pack for it that I made from 60 18650 lithium cells from discarded laptop packs, that give me about a 30 mile range at 20 mph or so. Since I"m retired I don't have a commute and I use the bike for shopping and other local trips.

And yeah, my computer is made from mostly castoffs too, my monitor and graphics card are the only parts I bought new.

[FogerRox]

5. The digital comtrollers sound like a spin off

From Model Railroad digital control> DCC> which vastly improves low speed performance, and improves operation thru most of the speed range.

Otherwise the website seems to be lacking in any real info.

[Fumesucker]

6. They don't want to reveal too much until the patent process is complete I imagine

The digital model RR controllers are basically pulse width modulated on top of a ramped DC voltage, that does give good torque right down to crawling speed, the better cordless drills use similar techniques.

I know enough about motor and digital control technology to say with some confidence that this does sound different from anything else I've heard of before. I built my first PWM motor controller in 1980 for a windshield wiper speed control, it used a 555 timer IC and a darlington transistor, you can still buy the exact same parts today.

Here's the circuit I used, this one has a MOSFET transistor instead of a darlington.

[FogerRox]

9. Yes !

The pulse is used to communicate with the chip. And the starting speed can be cut by half or better. Plus the ability to run multiple motors. So I'm assuming they came up with something better to be patentable?

[phantom power]

10. interesting, the energy required for the computation must pay for itself