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Maglev Chip Finds Niche in Power Tools
andhar writes: "This story in the Financial Times just goes to show you that it's often not the sexiest application of a technology that makes the best business sense. 'Today, while "maglev" trains remain a technological curiosity, linear motors are being quietly exploited in the less obviously glamorous field of machine tools. One of the leaders in such applications is Forest-Liné, a French company that makes products vital to the competitiveness of much larger industrial businesses' My margaritas want a maglev blender!"
Small, quiet, discreet, and energy-efficient. Who says chicks can't get into technology?
Rock-solid slides for milling machines would rock the world. No, it ain't a sexy application, but it brings us a step closer to the ideal manufacturing scenario, where mechanical parts can actually be CNC-milled before they're even designed.
Corollary to Moore's Law: The IQ of new computer owners is declining.
Who says technology can't get into chicks?
to take the fun out of electric trains
This is news? My electric toothbrush has a linear motor..
e rs onal_care/oral_care.asp#technobrush
http://www.panasonic.com/consumer_electronics/p
http://www.proscitech.com/get_frames.htm?e11a.htm
OK, more 'mag' than actual 'lev', but still...
They're always looking for a way to get lazier so I wouldn't be surprised if floating mag-lev tools do all the work while your average temaster takes a nap. You go 534th!
I disagree. In China (actually Germany I think), one is being built now. Maybe still a curiousity, but only as much as anything else that is part of an evolving technology.
In my mind, the best application, and perhaps the most glamorous, is in energy storage using electromagnetic flywheels. A few years back, Scientific American published an article about electromagnetic flywheels being used as backup generators; get them spinning once and bury them underground, with almost no friction then spin for a LONG time. Power goes off, all you have to do is turn on the generator and you've got power to the length of time relative to the mass of the flywheel. For a while that was part of the big hype about hydrogen powered fuel cells in cars, though the 100,000RPM flywheel seems to seems to have scared away a lot of people.
The future isn't what it used to be.
a Blender is Rotary. You do not want a linear motor. Dumbass.
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
Here is a cool page on how it works along with some good examples of how maglev trains are NOT simply technological curiosity.
-- -- Warning. Do not stare directly at the sun.
linear motors and maglevs are not the same. The latter use the former, that's it. But you can't expect the FT to know this...
A well known fictional character prefered his dry martinis "Shaken not stirred". With a this form of agitation a linear motor has some applicability.
Most people will do something if it makes them money. i guess there's more money in power tools then trains.....hmm..amtrak comes to mind right now..
All that is gold does not glitter, Not all those who wander are lost.
More than 20 years ago, I remember seeing at a computer show a daisywheel printer whose head was propelled by a linear motor (it was manufactured by a subsidiary of Exxon).
And in 1984, in Toronto, the Scarborough RT (Rapid Transit) line opened, which was the first full scale ICTS implementation. Since then, the small linear motor subway has found home in Vancouver and Detroit.
Today, while "maglev" trains remain a
technological curiosity, linear motors are being
quietly exploited in the less obviously
glamorous field of machine tools.
I consider machine tools that actually make things much more interesting then commuter trains hauling carloads of suits back and forth between their offices and their McMansions.
And 'MagLev' is not a synonym for 'linear motor'.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
I may have missed it, but where does it mention chips? are there linear motors on a chip? Has forest designed a control chip?
.sigless since 2003
To use technology, one must possess a properly functioning brain.
(oh so shoot me, I'm pissed)
-Billco, Fnarg.com
"My margaritas want a maglev blender!"
There's a difference between levitation and propulsion.
From the Financial Times article: "Linear motors are "flattened out" versions of conventional rotary motors. As their name implies, they promote linear motion - of the kind required in many kinds of machine tools that use a large number of sliding and shuttling actions, fundamental to the job of cutting metal."
Linear motors are just rotary motors cut and laid out flat... or another way to explain them is a rotary motor of infinite radius.
"Maglev" is obviously short for magnetic levitation. Linear motors are common in maglevs simply because there is an air gap between the vehicle and the track. It would be very difficult to use conventional motors in such a system whithout driving wheels (or mechanical friction). However, other types of propulsion can also be used... such as jet engines, solid rocket boosters, etc. Although perhaps not practical for commercial trains, a maglev with rocket propulsion could be used for launching scram jets from the ground.
Linear motors can be used without magnetic levitation. It is completely feasible to use a linear motor on conventional wheeled "people movers." Although this application is rare since linear motors typical consume more energy than rotary motors.
Those machines are on forest-line web site.
They look impresive.
Maglev trains may use linear motors, but that doesn't make linear motors maglev. There's nothing even high tech about linear motors.
a point has been made.
While I still believe that the rotary action of a blender's blades make for a more efficient all-purpose blender, specifically for a martini, linear would make perfect sense.
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
Brother Typewriter had a product in the mid 80's called the Brother EM-1 electronic typewriter. The print carraige rolled back and fourth on a Linear Moter.
It had the advantage of having no belts or pulleys. Nothing to tighten or replace. It couldn't get out of alignment.
They abandoned it in later models for a wire pulley system. I guess the fact that it sounded like a BART train freaked people out.
-Cutecub
I (I'm a EE) work with a bunch of Industrial Desingers and they get bored when their project isn't sexy. boo-hoo.
They should be happy that they are being paid so well and they are employed, so says me.
If you want something exciting, pick up work on the side. or just surf for porn.
I didn't do it, and if I did, you can't prove it. Bart Simpson
so for a maglev motor for a "margarita blender" take a linear motor and connect the ends to make a circle. Oh, wait, that would just be a regular ac motor in a cheap $20 blender.
Linear motors have been around for quite a while in non "levitation" applications to:
BTW, why did the FT put a picture of a CCD imager chip on an article about linear motors?
I know for a fact that United Parcel Service, has been using a maglev system in their Pacific, WA Hub for almost two years now. There is also plans to build one in Montana even bigger. What does the maglev system do for UPS you ask? It automaticly sorts the packages using all those bar codes and dots they put on the labels.
I have seen alot in this world, but my god i couldn't believe that monkey!!
When did he get back?
Have been doing this for years.
Small, quiet, discreet, and energy-efficient.
That's what they all say to their boyfriends. "No hon, this little thing is just to keep me content until you arrive home; it can't satisfy me the way you do!"
But when they're in the ol' self-pleasure isle with the other gals, they're checking out the gas powered air/oil cooled 2.5hp variable speed "Super-O(TM)" with multiple attachments, and free oil changes and tune-ups for one year.
-- If god wanted me to have a sig, he'd have given me a sense of humor.
How dare you take an anti-union/anti-socialist view. This is Slashdot after all! For shame.
. Quit playing Monopoly with Bill. Switch to one of many non-Microsoft products today.
They're not "new," we used Anorad linear motors back in college too many years ago to remember, back mapping the EMF using a sub-nanometer resolution laser interferometer to improve the velocity and position accuracy (they've been around since the '50s).
Currently I help design machines that use a mixture of linear motors and ball screws as appropriate. In applications with high linear speed, short/medium stroke, and no static hold requirement, linear motors are a good choice.
If you move slowly, that long chain of rare earth magnets isn't a good investment compared to a ball screw (but the ones that came out of a linear motor we broke that are on my refrigerator really impress people.)
If you need a long stroke, that chain of magnets gets very expensive ( though they're used for elevators sometimes.) On the other hand, ball screws can be limiting in applications requiring long length as the driven mass increases linearly with the length of the drive, not the case with a linear motor.
If your application requires extended static holds, then a ball screw is a lot easier to integrate.
For most machine tool applications they aren't really a good choice (since machine tools typically have feed rates and target accelerations well suited to ball screws) but a number of companies do build machines with linear motors for one or more axis, and they tend to dominante the "ultra-high speed machining market."
This is a decent comparison of the strengths and weaknesses of the two dominant linear motion technologies for the curious.
Now if you want a really new technology for linear motion appropriate to high accuracy machining, then what you really want is hydrostatic leadscrews and bearings.
The energy storage density in flywheel systems isn't very high unless A) the wheel is very heavy or B) the wheel spins very fast.
The problem with (A) is that heavy usually means big. The problems with (B) are that it has to be very, very well balanced and fast spinning wheels tend to rip themselves apart unless they are made very strong, so the top speed of the wheel is limited.
Current flywheel technology really doesn't provide enough storage density for anything other than a backup UPS system, delivering power only to critical systems for a short duration of time.
Its a nice clean energy storage system, but it still has a ways to go in terms of energy density.
High end turbo molecular pumps are often magnetically levitated in order to reduce friction and vibration. The cost of these pumps is higher but they have better vibration characteristics. The downside is that they are more suceptible to damage from shock. If you bang a maglev pump around too much the spindle can touch down and then something very bad is likely to happen due to the large amount of stored energy in the rotor.
I'm not sure how the maglev systems work in these pumps, I believe that there are sensors and coils that control the position of the spindle.
The site says: SkyTrain's linear induction motors have no moving parts and rarely require maintenance, making the system one of the most reliable in the world. Whatever. When the new line is done, it will run near my house and take me to work quickly & quietly. We've got lots of hydroelectric power up here, we'd rather run our little trains with it than send it south for lighting up the desert.
quack
no sig, no plan, no clue
I just wanna know who marked me Informative ... were they going by 'buzzwords,' or what ... ?
Corollary to Moore's Law: The IQ of new computer owners is declining.
okay, sentient humanoid (non-furry) females then. My apologies to any non-humanoids and cosmic phenomena who read /.
Corollary to Moore's Law: The IQ of new computer owners is declining.