As ‘green’ grabs more headlines, so electric motors are being developed for ever widening fields of use. Hampshire based PML Flightlink Ltd. has been designing and producing an extensive range of electric motors for well over 40 years. In the process, it has pioneered (amongst other things) servo motor engineering and flat armature technology.
PML has developed joysticks (used in the electric wheel chair industry) as well as a revolutionary wheel motor and a new range of brushless pancake motors. These products are adapted to a variety of specifications and uses within different market sectors; such as defence, aerospace, motion control, processing, printing, instrumentation and test and measurement equipment.
Now PML’s revolutionary new Hi-Pa Drive™ and Nano Wheel brushless electric motor technology is breaking completely new ground.
Hi-Pa Drive™ propulsion (whereby four PML brushless electric motors are integrated into each of a car’s four wheels, providing both power and full regenerative braking in the process) has already been fitted to and trialled successfully on the Mini QED. And now Volvo has embraced the benefits of PML’s revolutionary Hi-Pa Drive™ technology and is incorporating the full QED system into its latest concept vehicle – the Volvo ReCharge. This was unveiled at the Frankfurt Motor Show.
PML’s new Nano Wheel is a simpler (and far cheaper) development of PML’s Hi-Pa Drive™ technology. It revolutionises hub motor design and end user friendliness across huge swathes of wheeled products. A Nano Wheel has its electric motor enclosed within its hub and costs just tens of pounds (depending on quantities supplied). So, at little extra cost, PML’s new Nano Wheel will transform something you struggle to push or pull into something that can be power-assisted or fully powered.
The Nano Wheel’s hub motor can be between 2 and 10 Nm (Newton metre) and fits within the wheel – which incorporates its own patented integral suspension system. This is part of the one piece wheel injection moulding. The Nano Wheel is compact, light and simple and has already been incorporated into a wheeled suitcase which is ‘power assisted.’ And now an all new fully powered golf trolley is shortly to hit the market. It also benefits from regenerative braking.
The advantages offered by Nano Wheel are numerous. Since there is no gearbox or drive shaft, it is compact and light, offering an exceptional power to weight ratio. For the same reason, it folds away better than a wheel connected to a drive shaft. And thanks to its direct hub drive, it has fewer moving parts, less friction and provides more power from a given battery source.
PML Flightlink Limited
Simon Peaty
Tel: 01420 594140
Email: simonp@pmlflightlink.com
www.pmlflightlink.com
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