Torin-Sifan has continued its significant investment in technology and infrastructure with the addition of an in-house state-of-the art precision winding machine. This investment will enable the company to bring the very latest three phase EC (electronically commutated) motor technology to market, as the company flies the flag for British innovation.
Torin-Sifan has invested in the latest market-leading winding machine in order to offer its customers technological advances and better service. The winding machine can be used to customise products for different applications and is enabling Torin-Sifan to develop its new motor platforms.
A six-figure investment has been made in the winding machine and associated training and this follows on from a large investment in Torin-Sifan’s two Swindon manufacturing sites. A new EC Manufacturing and Technology Centre was opened at Pagoda Park in Swindon in February and a state-of-the-art logistical centre has recently been created at Torin-Sifan’s Greenbridge HQ. Torin-Sifan is leading the way in EC technology in the UK and sees these investments as essential in further enhancing British engineering capabilities.
“By having a new winding machine in-house, rather than outsourcing, we are better able to control quality and it enables us to make developments in a controlled manner too. Investing in the latest winding machine means that our products contain cutting-edge technology,” explained Martin Page, technical director at Torin-Sifan.
“At Torin-Sifan we are committed to continuous improvement and investment in our manufacturing facilities and view purchasing the latest machinery as essential in enabling us to continue to lead the way in EC technology.”
Torin-Sifan’s latest addition is a three-headed high speed needle winding machine which can wind three stators at the same time and uses a needle to lay the wire in the stator. The machine is able to wind a range of stator diameters and stack heights as well as a range of wire thicknesses. Production of a different stator can be made in a matter of minutes with a simple change of tooling and selection of the appropriate program from the PLC graphical interface, providing flexibility in production batch size with minimum change-over time.
The winding machine is highly accurate, using electrical servo motors, absolute encoders and a powerful PLC to control the needle position to within ten microns so that it is able to perform precise layering of the wire to give the best fill factor in the stator slot in the shortest possible time. This results in neatly and tightly wound coils improving the electromagnetic, thermal and acoustic properties of the motor.
The tightly wound coils also mean that motor dimensions are optimised so product size can be reduced. Motor and reliability is also improved since it minimises insulation breakdown due to wire cross-over and coil vibration when the motor is energised with PWM fed voltages. This compares very favourably with the more conventional fly winding approach, often known as wild winding, since there is little or no control over the wire position on the stator pole.
Accuracy is further improved since the winding machine feeds the wire through the phase termination pocket and onto a fixing post. The wind of the motor is then completed in one unbroken process with the stator then ready directly for phase termination using IDCs (insulation-displacement contact).
Torin-Sifan is leading the way in EC technology in the UK and is further enhancing British engineering capabilities with its ongoing investment in technology and facilities. The company is also a leading light in British exports.
EC technology is highly efficient and offers significant energy savings when compared to traditional AC technology. Sustainability is an important consideration at Torin-Sifan and the carbon savings that are offered by EC technology are achieved through both better efficiency and longer product life. With more than 50 years as a leading producer of the latest fan technology, Torin-Sifan continues to set the standard in motor, fan and blower products.