A New Motor with a PCB Stator and No Copper Windings  

Infinitum Electric, an electric motor manufacturer founded in 2016, has a mission to disrupt the way electric machines consume and create electricity.  The company has a patented printed circuit board (PCB) stator technology that can potentially change the electric motor landscape. 

The unique design of Infinitum Electric’s motors replaces traditional iron and copper stators with an IoT-enabled printed circuit board stator.  This not only makes the motors some of the most efficient motors in the world, but it removes the copper windings that require specialized and expensive winding equipment that most electric motor manufactures need.  These motors can be manufactured with common PCB technology, drastically reducing the cost, weight, and complexity involved in manufacturing motors.  With the electric motor remaining virtually unchanged since it was founded more than 100 years ago, this new motor with a PCB stator might be a disruptor in the motor market for a handful of applications.  

Integrated Variable Frequency Drive: With the use of inline inductors, Infinitum aims to offer a motor and drive in one package without much change to form-factor.  Integrated motor and drive solutions allow for on-board processing of sensor data, such as temperature, vibration, voltage, current, speed, etc.  Previously, this data needed to be transmitted to a local computer, or to the cloud, in order to derive further insights.  With low cost processing becoming ubiquitous, the integrated motor and drive can directly indicate to the user when maintenance is required, or some variable is operating out of normal range.  On-board processing also opens the door for more advanced technologies, like Model Predictive Control (MPC) and Machine Learning local to the device.  These technologies can predict values not being measured, essentially creating “soft-sensors” for a wide range of parameters.

In December 2019, the company announced the close of a $12.5 million Series B Round of financing, which has allowed company to open its manufacturing facility to begin fulfilling initial customer contracts with some of the largest HVAC OEMs in the industry.