Lynch motor
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The Lynch motor is a flat (pancake) axial gap permanent magnet brushed DC motor invented by Cedric Lynch.[1]
United States patent 4823039 amongst others, cover the motor and its construction.
The motor was developed into a production item, by Cedric Lynch and Trevor Lees, in the early 1990s.
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[edit] Description
In this motor the iron laminations are rectangular, which made it possible to have them commercially made from material intended for this purpose without the expense of a special stamping tool. Because the flux passes through the laminations along one axis only, it became possible to take advantage of grain-oriented material normally used in large transformers. This has much better magnetic properties along the grain orientation but worse properties in other directions, so in the traditional type of motor it gives little or no benefit.
This motor went into small-scale production in 1988 with the EV conversion firm London Innovation[2] and later with the Lynch Electric Motor Company (LEMCO). In 1989 four of them powered the boat "An Stradag", driven by the Countess of Arran, to a world record speed for an electric boat of just over 80 km/h (50 mph). The motor was adopted by the Swiss company ASMO for use in its electric go-kart drive systems.[3] Its efficiency extends the life of the batteries and so improves the economics of running an electric kart track.
The patents and license rights for the manufacturing of the Lynch motor are held by the Lynch IP company, which has sold a license to Briggs and Stratton to manufacture the ETEK motor.
LEMCO continued to manufacture motors and now trades under the name of LMC (Lynch Motor Company) which now owns the Lynch IP company and therefore all rights and patents pertaining to the motor.
In 2009, Cedric Lynch has parted company with LMC and is working for Agni Motors, which is producing similar motors.[3]
Lynch motors are mentioned as being a unique product in the documentary "The White Diamond" about a lighter than air ship: "This is actually an interesting motor. It is designed by somebody called Lynch in England. He never went to University and doesn't know any mathematics and stuff like that, but he taught himself electrical engineering. And it turns out the motor he made is one the world's leading in terms of power and mass. And he's developed his own kind of algebra to do that but no other academic can understand what he's doing. But he seems to know more than many academics in electrical engineering departments because this motor is very good performance ... the best that I could find."[4]
[edit] Recent projects
- 2005 - ENV fuel cell motorcycle[5]
- Orange Juice electric dragster[dead link] with its unique four wheel drive unit. A video of Orange Juice running with a lithium battery pack can be seen here [1].
- 30 July 2008 - Four of the LMC version of the Lynch motor where used in a modified G-Wiz by the show Top Gear to beat a Ford Mustang in a straight-line race to 100 mph.[6]
- 12 June 2009, Rob Barber won the inaugural Manx TTxGP on an Agni Motors bike powered by an Agni motor, an improved version of the original Lynch motor.
[edit] Patents
- EP 0736232
- EP 0884826
- Germany number 69419528.6
- Great Britain number 0884826
- Japan number 3120083
- Europe number 98114008.0 (CH, DE, FR, GB, LI, IT)
[edit] References
- ^ Wallace and Gromit's World of Invention - 6. A to B
- ^ CEDRIC LYNCH DC PANCAKE ELECTRIC TRACTION MOTOR
- ^ a b AGNI - ASMO Karts
- ^ The White Diamond - aviation documentary
- ^ "design and innovation company - case studies". seymourpowell. http://www.seymourpowell.com/casestudies/view/11. Retrieved 2012-02-22.
- ^ Lynch Motor Company Ltd 07/30/08 Top Gear goes electric
[edit] See also
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