• High Power in a Small Package: Designed with advanced 3-D FEA software to optimize magnet shape, stator skew angle, and rotor geometry. You get maximum power in any given motor size to move loads faster, and with more finesse. more…

• Responsive: High torque-to-inertia ratio and fast electrical time constant give you the ability to make moves with rapid settling time, precise velocity regulation, and excellent dynamic accuracy. more…

• Smooth and Quiet: Low torque ripple courtesy of a harmonically-pure back-EMF, combined with individually custom-balanced rotors, gives you ultra-smooth and quiet motion. more…

• Versatile: High power density and innovative cable management allow Hudson motors to fit into tight spaces. Open-standard design means you can use Hudsons with virtually any brushless servo drive. more…

• Rugged and Reliable: Brushless design, oversized bearings, high-temperature windings, fault-tolerant encoder design, and extensive testing of every single motor assures you of lasting reliability. more…

• Unsurpassed Warranty: Three year warranty period—and it doesn’t even start counting down until you take the motor out of your inventory and actually start using it (up to an additional six months from date of purchase). more…

• Low Price: Teknic’s OEM-only focus eliminates all middlemen, so you get exceptionally low prices on quality motors. more… 

• Save on Installation Cost: Hudsons are ready to use right out of the box. Each motor comes with an integrated encoder, a dual-shielded pigtail, and a fully-assembled connector (no “flying leads” to hand wire). And, the consolidated phase and signal connector (one connector instead of two) makes motor extension cables easier to build and saves you money. more…

• Designed, Built and Tested in the USA: Careful design for manufacturability and a large investment in automation allows us to cost-effectively assemble and test Hudsons right here in Rochester, New York, using skilled production technicians.

High Power in a Small Package

Attaining maximum usable power requires high peak torque, high continuous torque and high rated speed—the Hudson has all three.

• High peak torque is achieved by using sintered Neodymium-Iron-Boron permanent magnets—not plastic-bonded Neodymium—and by using advanced, 3-D finite element analysis (FEA) software to optimize magnet shape, winding fill factor, stator skew angle, and rotor geometry.

• High continuous torque requires a motor that can manage heat. With its carefully optimized thermal design, Hudsons dissipate heat with ease. Even when pushed hard, the Hudson’s 200ºC-rated winding insulation stays safe, and its specially-formulated permanent magnets are free from significant drop-off in field strength.

• High speed motor operation requires high frequency variation in motor current. The Hudson’s fast electrical time constant (low ratio of winding inductance to resistance) offers minimum impedance to these high frequency changes in current, so there’s minimum torque droop. High speed operation combined with simultaneous high torque gives you maximum power.
  

Responsive

High performance servo control—dynamic accuracy, velocity regulation and fast settling time—requires a motor that is responsive, both electromagnetically and mechanically.

• The Hudson’s fast electrical time constant not only minimizes steady-state torque droop, it allows quick reaction to the fast transients demanded by high-performance servo drives.

• Fast mechanical response is accomplished by generating high peak torque with a low inertia rotor. With a high torque-to-inertia ratio, less torque is wasted accelerating the rotor, and more torque is available for accelerating the load.

Smooth and Quiet

Magnetic design can also greatly influence motor noise and vibration. Over the last several years, it has been in vogue to use internal permanent magnet (IPM) rotor designs in servo motors in order to cut costs. The IPM design buries permanent magnets within a lamination stack on the rotor shaft so as to focus the permanent magnet flux. Flux focusing allows the use of smaller and/or lower energy magnets, however, it leads to large variations in the motor’s inductance as it spins, resulting in inferior servo performance. It also causes pulsating, non-tangential forces within the motor that cause significant audible noise and vibration.

• Hudson motors use an external permanent magnet (EPM) rotor design for maximum smoothness and minimal audible noise. At right, see the graphs comparing the audible noise of the IPM design to that of the Hudson (EPM) design, and listen to an audio recording of an A-B comparison of the two designs.

• Hudson motors have obliquely aligned stator lamination teeth and permanent magnets with a carefully engineered cross-sectional shape to minimize detent torque. They also produce a harmonically-pure back-EMF which minimizes torque ripple.

• Each Hudson is shipped with a precisely custom-balanced rotor, and high quality bearings to ensure ultra-smooth mechanical movement.

• For designers used to using stepper motors, the Hudson’s smooth and quiet motion will be especially noticeable.

The Hudson’s high power density allows it to fit where other motors can’t, and its open-standard design lets you use Hudson motors with practically any servo drive.

• Hudsons have a very high “Km” (motor constant) per unit volume so you’ll get maximum power for the size motor used.

• Minimal space is needed for cable routing or service loops because the single cable, single connector pigtail exits the motor tangentially (rather than perpendicularly) in a recessed groove. This further improves the Hudson’s effective power to size ratio.

• Hudson motors use standard quadrature encoder feedback and 120-degree commutation sensors, meaning you can use them with virtually every make and model of brushless servo drive. You aren’t locked into using one vendor’s drive because of a proprietary feedback device.

• The Hudson’s brushless design eliminates the arcing, electrical noise, and carbon dust problems associated with brush motors. This makes them ideal in applications that are noise or dust sensitive.

Designed for Rugged Reliability

Brushless servo motors are inherently more reliable than brush-type motors because: 1) they don’t have brushes to wear out or burn up at high power output, 2) the location of their windings allows easier heat dissipation, so the windings stay cooler for any given power output, and 3) the only moving parts in contact with each other are within the bearings. Even with these important reliability features, some brushless motors are more reliable than others:

• Hudson’s precision bearings are oversized to decrease wear and to avoid premature failure when used in applications with radial (side) loading. The bearings are also permanently sealed with high-performance grease to reduce friction and motor noise, and eliminate bearing maintenance

• In all brushless motor stators, the windings at the ends of the stator are not in contact with the stator iron, and are therefore not as well heat-sinked as the more embedded windings. In Hudsons, we machine form these exposed end-turns, densely packing them, so that effectively they become a single thermal mass. This helps protect them against spot-overheating and burn-out.

• The neodymium-rich permanent magnets have a thick nickel-plating to be highly resistant to corrosion and hydrogen absorption which cause brittleness in rare-earth magnets and eventually lead to decrepitation (crumbling into powder).

• The encoder disk is attached to the shaft using an expanding mandrel-type clamp that eliminates the set-screw failures common to many encoders. (This symmetric clamping method also reduces run-out error and improves rotor balance.)

• A built-in thermal sensor tells the motor drive when the encoder electronics reach their maximum safe operating temperature so that the motor is protected from thermal damage. This sensor also ensures that the motor windings stay a full 65ºC below their rated maximum temperature of 200ºC (most motor windings are only rated for 135-155ºC). This large safety margin protects against spot overheating which is hard for any sensor to detect, and it also reduces insulation failure due to the heat aging caused by prolonged operation close to the insulation’s short-term maximum temperature rating.

• The fully integrated optical encoder has unsurpassed noise rejection due to: 1) multiple, redundant optical apertures, 2) internal power supply filtering, and 3) a feedback-controlled illumination source. It also has a shatter-proof, photo-lithographically produced, stainless steel encoder disk.

• The balanced encoder runs cooler and is less load on the motor drive than most other balanced encoders because of its low current draw (40mA vs. a typical 150mA).
  

• Instead of having exposed, painted laminations, Hudson motors have an all-aluminum housing that is compression fit to the stator. This greatly improves conductive heat transfer to the mounting flange—the main source of heat sinking. The grooved housing improves convective transfer. Both features keep the motor cooler in any given application, thereby extending its life and improving its reliability.

• The motor housing is anodized with a UV- and heat-resistant, “architectural quality” finish (not painted or powder-coated). This treatment preserves the rich, metallic look of the housing, and provides a sapphire-hard finish layer that resists scratches, and won’t ever peel, flake or chip.

• The entire Hudson family has been successfully tested for compliance with UL and CE certification standards. This means that Hudson motors have earned the stamp of approval from independent agencies certifying that Hudsons meet rigorous standards for electrical safety and electromagnetic emissions. Field audits every quarter by UL inspectors ensure on-going conformance with these standards.
  
  

Tested for Reliability

Every single Hudson motor receives a full suite of in-line and post-production tests to assure you of the highest incoming quality. Among others, these tests include:

• Electromagnetic performance
• Magnet field strength
• Encoder integrity
• Rotor balance
• Commutation sensor accuracy
• Critical mechanical tolerances
• Insulation system (hipot)
• Complete functional test
• HASS (Highly Accelerated Stress Screening) to test each motor beyond its published specifications.
  

Reliability That’s Backed Up Like No Other Servo Motor

All Hudson motors carry a three year warranty. Actually, it’s even better than that. Teknic knows that machine components such as motors are sometimes stored in inventory for a while before being used, so we don’t start the warranty clock until you put the motor into service (up to a maximum of six extra months). Nobody else in the industry has a warranty that even comes close.

Machine designers know that the total cost for any component in their machine is not just the purchase price alone. It includes the cost of any required peripheral components (e.g., cables, sensors, etc.), installation costs, engineering costs (making the component function as desired in the machine), and repair and maintenance costs. Hudson motors excel in all these categories.

Low Purchase Price

The purchase price for the Hudson family of servo motors is so low, you’ll wonder what the catch is. Here’s the secret (actually two secrets):

First, our OEM focus has allowed us to eliminate all the middlemen. If you’re an OEM, you can buy directly from Teknic, save all the typical distributor mark-up costs, and get 100-piece annual quantity pricing even when you buy individual motors. (You also get factory-direct technical support.)

Second, we’ve intelligently limited the number of motor options. Limiting the options allows us to drastically reduce manufacturing expenses and put the savings into motor performance, quality and lower prices. And while we may not offer as many options as some other motor manufacturers, we think the Hudsons offer enough selection to give most of our customers the flexibility they need:

Whether you’re looking for a better, lower cost servo motor, or you’re looking for an economical, but high performance, replacement for a stepper motor, a Hudson motor will meet your needs. 
 

Hudson Features Save You On Installation Costs

A number of thoughtful design features will save you money during installation:

• The generous length pigtail (16 inches) often eliminates the need for a motor phase/encoder cable (when used with a Teknic drive). With some servo motors, the motor cable can cost as much as the motor.

• When an extension motor cable is needed, the Hudson’s convenient single-connector design saves you substantial money. If you use a Teknic drive, Teknic offers custom-length motor cables, with fast lead-time, at prices lower than you can get direct from a cable shop.

• The finished pigtail saves labor compared to motors with “flying leads” that have to be terminated and inserted into connectors. Wiring mistakes are also prevented.

• Hudson’s standard configuration includes an encoder with high-current, low-impedance, totem-pole outputs. This robust interface virtually eliminates noise problems associated with commonly used open-collector encoder outputs, and uses fewer wires than differential encoders (saving money, and saving space in cable tracks). A differential encoder option is available for applications with very long cable runs or severe electrical noise.
  

Teknic’s OEM-only focus means you’ll work with factory specialists who will create a solid-body simulation of your application (free of charge) to ensure you get the optimum motor (not too big, not too small).

• Teknic will also create a custom torque/speed curve made specifically for whatever motor drive you plan to use (hopefully a Teknic drive, but Hudson motors are compatible with virtually any brushless servo drive).

• BLDC servo motors for clean to moderately dirty environments
• Standard NEMA shaft diameters for use with very small pulleys, pinions and couplings
• Circular mounting flange for face-mounted applications.
• Built-in single-ended (TTL) rotary encoder with shatter-proof Mylar disk
• Durable, high-temperature plastic encoder cover
• Shaft diameter is enlarged at the bearing to allow a larger bearing than otherwise possible with a NEMA diameter shaft.

• BLDC servo motors with military-style, on-body bayonet connectors
• Shaft diameter is enlarged at the bearing to allow a much larger bearing
• Mechanically-floating differential rotary encoder
• Class-H windings conservatively rated for use up to 135°C
• Rare-earth NdFeB permanent magnets
• Aluminum encoder cover
• Exposed laminations are epoxy painted for a clean look

There is often confusion about brushless electric motor types because a number of motor technology terms are often used interchangeably. Hudson motors have been called (more or less correctly) all of the following:

Technically speaking, all of Teknic’s motors, including Hudsons, are “3-phase, synchronous, permanent magnet, brushless, servo motors”. The term “servo motor” means that the motor is used with a feedback device (e.g., an optical encoder) to control torque, velocity, and/or position. The term “brushless”, aside from the obvious, means that the motor requires a drive that supports electronic commutation. The term “permanent magnet”, in the context of motor types, means that the motor uses permanent magnets on the rotor (or on the stator, in the case of brush-type motors). The term “synchronous” means that the rotational speed of the electromagnetic field is the same as (synchronous with) the speed of the rotor; there is no “slip” between them. And, finally, the term “3-phase” means the motor has three separate stator windings (connected together in a delta or wye configuration).

Stepper motors (or, stepping motors) are also brushless, permanent magnet motors. They are generally 2-phase or 5-phase motors. Stepper motors are not typically servo controlled, although their position is sometimes checked with an add-on rotary encoder after the end of each move to correct for lost steps or stalls. Stepper motors are commutated by rotating the electromagnetic field in incremental steps (typically 200 full steps per revolution) and allowing the rotor to “catch up” with it.