3 Ways to Implement Motors Direct on to Your PCB

MOTION CONTROL: Increasing global competition drives need for improved innovation, productivity, and faster time to market. A PCB Motor can help you Increase profit margin and fast track your development process using standard components and well established assembly techniques. The motors are ready-to-use in sizes ranging from 20mm to 70mm and now come in two models: the standard square footprint stator and the new jigsaw stator.

You can mount the jigsaw stator in three different ways: (A) in line with your PCB, (B) onto your PCB, or (C) elevated over your PCB.

Traditional design methods use PCBs as motor controllers with connections to a physical motor located somewhere in the vicinity of the card. Thinking outside the box, where a Danish company has developed a new technology to build a flat and accurate motor directly onto the PCB itself.

Technically speaking, the PCBMotor consists of two parts: (1) The stator, milled out of the PCB itself, holds the piezos/actuators and electrical connecting circuit (the PCB can also hold the driver) and (2) The rotor, pressed onto the surface of the stator, delivers the mechanical output.  A travelling wave is generated over the stator surface, acting as a flexible ring to produce elliptical motion on the rotor interface. The elliptical motion of the contact surface propels the rotor and the connected drive-shaft.

1×1mm piezo ceramic components are mounted on PCB. Operation depends on friction between the moving rotor and stator as well as amplitude and quality of the wave travelling on the stator. The rotor can turn between 60 and 120 RPM with torque ranging from 1Nmm to more than 70Nmm depending on the stator’s diameter, number of piezo components and the rotor design and material.

-Edited by Kelsey Anderson