Portescap's h3 Stepper Motor Named 2007 Design News "Golden Mousetrap" Award Finalist


Award program recognizes best products of the year in four different categories as judged by Design News readers

WEST CHESTER, PA - The innovative h3 Stepper Motor from Portescap, a Danaher Motion company, has been named a finalist in the 2007 Design News magazine "Golden Mousetrap" awards in the motion control/automation category. The awards recognize the best products of the year in four separate categories - electronics, motion control/automation, hardware and software, as well as materials/fastening, joining and assembly. The design engineering readers of Design News magazine judge the entries.

The h3 is a 1.8-degree hybrid step motor available in NEMA 17, 23 and 34 frame sizes. Various stack lengths are available in each frame size, and windings can be customized to suit individual application needs.

"The h3 stepper motor offers a number of design enhancements over traditional hybrid step motors for lower temperature operation, reduced power consumption and higher output torque. These enhancements allow OEM's to increase the output performance of their machine while reducing the overall package size. The h3 is engineered to maximize design flexibility and performance, and rapid prototyping of customized h3 models dramatically reduces the design cycle for OEM machine builders," says Dave Beckstoffer, Portescap Product Specialist.

An aluminum housing provides superior heat dissipation and slows the temperature rise resulting in higher output torque, while also reducing power consumption to benefit the overall power requirements of the step motor system. Neodymium magnet material delivers optimized torque density without an increase in package size. Additionally, stator-enhanced magnets enable users to benefit from up to 40% more torque in the same footprint than is attainable from standard hybrid step motors. Larger bearings enable these motors to effectively handle higher side and radial loads than is possible with traditional hybrid steppers. In an effort to counter the disadvantages found in typical step motor systems, these innovations also provide quieter operation with less resonance across the entire speed range.

Medical equipment OEMs are able to reduce the overall noise of their product due to the captured bearing design of the h3. Resonance inherent to step motors is greatly reduced with the h3 stepper, allowing smoother operation throughout the speed range. The increased torque output enables these OEMs to reduce the size of the motor required for their equipment, creating a smaller and lighter weight end product.

Semiconductor and office automation equipment OEMs benefit from the superior heat dissipation of the h3 to reduce the overall temperature in the machine. Additionally, the reduced temperature rise provides greater output torque during operation. Combined with the reduced noise and package size, the throughput of the machine is increased.

About Portescap

Portescap offers the broadest miniature and specialty motor product line in the industry, encompassing coreless brush DC, brushless DC, stepper can stack, gear heads, digital linear actuators, disc magnet and hybrid technology. Portescap products have been solving diverse motion control needs in medical, semiconductor, HVAC, aerospace and commercial applications for more than 70 years. Portescap has manufacturing centers in the United States, Malaysia, and India and utilizes a Global Product Development network with research and development centers in the United States, Singapore, and Switzerland.

For more information contact: Portescap, a Danaher Motion company, 110 Westtown Road, West Chester, PA 19382; 1-610-235-5499; fax: 1-610-696-4294; sales.america@portescap.com; www.portescap.com

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