Linear electric motors designed specifically for machine tools

NUM has launched a series of brushless linear servo motors designed specifically for continuous duty cycle applications in machine tools.

NUM’s new LMX series linear motors incorporate a number of features to help mitigate the effect of arduous operating conditions. Their moving coil primary section is fully encapsulated in a robust stainless-steel housing, with an integrated cooling circuit designed to maximize the flow rate, which also allows the use of low specific heat capacity cooling liquids. The motors have a short pole pitch to increase force density, minimize cogging forces and reduce thermal losses, making them ideal for performing electronic contract manufacturing tasks.

LMX linear motors comprise a metal track with multiple embedded rare-earth magnets, and a coil assembly supported by a customer-supplied guideway. A key feature of the motors is that they’re designed to operate with a comparatively large air gap of 1 mm, to reduce the impact of mounting tolerances on performance characteristics. For most machine tool applications, the track is held stationary and the coil assembly is free to move – but converse mounting arrangements are also practicable, with similar performance attributes.

Suitable for use with standard 3-phase sinusoidal brushless servo drives, NUM’s LMX series linear motors are especially cost-effective when teamed with the company’s NUMDrive X or new NUM DrivePro drives. Both families of drives feature a high degree of functional integration, making them some of the smallest on the market, and offer extensive safe motion monitoring and control options to help simplify design-in.

The new NUM DrivePro drives are likely to be of particular interest to OEMs seeking maximum performance from NUM’s new LMX series linear motors. Implemented using advanced system-on-chip (SoC) technology and based on a multi-core ARM processor, the drives employ bare metal programming to eliminate operating system latency.

For more information, visit www.num.com.