150 Years Old and Still Building Motors for Space Robots
Magmotor Technologies has been making custom electric motors since 1876. Now it plans to triple its workforce and revenue, with robotics leading the charge.
Key points
- Magmotor Technologies, founded in 1876 in Lebanon, New Hampshire, is planning an expansion it says will triple both revenue and headcount.
- The company's brush motors, a type of motor that uses physical contacts to deliver power, have been used in NASA rovers and BattleBots robots.
- Magmotor's smallest motors measure roughly 1.5 by 2 inches; its largest weigh up to 65 pounds and spin at up to 6,000 rpm.
- Most manufacturing currently happens in China, but the company says it wants to bring some production back to the United States.
- Magmotor is considering adding AC motors and brushless motor designs to a product line built almost entirely on brush motors for decades.
A motor company that started making equipment the year Custer made his last stand is now building hardware for space robots. Magmotor Technologies, based in Worcester, Massachusetts, turns 150 this year, and it is not slowing down.
The company was originally founded in 1876 as Kendrick and Davis in Lebanon, New Hampshire, quietly producing custom AC and DC fan motors for more than a century. In its 102nd year, Herbert Peterson bought the business, renamed it K&D Magmotor, and moved it to Worcester. The name has since shortened to Magmotor Technologies, but the product philosophy has changed very little.
What does Magmotor actually make?
Magmotor specialises in brush motors, the kind that use small physical carbon contacts, called brushes, to transfer electrical current and make the motor spin. Many companies have moved away from these toward brushless motors, which swap those contacts for electronics. Magmotor has largely stayed put, because its customers, including NASA and the space industry, prize brush motors for their reliability in demanding environments.
The motors power an unusually wide range of things: NASA rovers, BattleBots competition robots, ship-cleaning robots built by an Italian firm, elevators, electric lawnmowers, and GPS-guided equipment. Motors range from tiny units about 1.5 by 2 inches to units weighing 65 pounds, all using neodymium magnets, a particularly strong type of rare-earth magnet, to squeeze more power from a compact package.
Almost none of these products sit on a shelf waiting to be ordered. The bulk of Magmotor's business is fully custom work, designed around a specific customer's needs.
What is the company planning next?
Magmotor says the expansion will triple both income and the number of people it employs, as reported by The Robot Report. Production manager Jamie Willigar, who has been with the company 21 years, says the plan includes hiring a new generation of workers who will learn directly from veterans with 25-plus years on the floor before those veterans retire.
The company also wants to bring at least some manufacturing back to the United States. Most production currently sits with Chinese partners, an arrangement that dates to the late 1990s, when China received most-favoured-nation trade status. All design work and final assembly still happen in Worcester.
On the product side, Magmotor is considering re-entering the AC motor market and building more brushless motors. It has not made AC motors in years, and senior mechanical design engineer Scott Cerra acknowledges the shift will take time and new engineering work. Brush motors will not disappear from the lineup.
"At Magmotor, it is really not just about modernisation or pushing the newest technology," Cerra said. "For us, it is more about being present and truly supporting the customers' needs for the long term."
What does this mean for smaller customers?
If you run a small operation, this matters. Magmotor says it works with tiny husband-and-wife businesses the same way it works with large industrial firms. It recently re-engineered a replacement motor for a customer whose original supplier had stopped supporting an older product, getting their system running again without forcing them to redesign everything around it.
Willigar says Magmotor is also stocking more off-the-shelf motors that can ship immediately, which helps customers avoid the kind of production delays that have become common since the pandemic disrupted global supply chains. If your business depends on a piece of equipment with a specialised motor, that kind of backup availability is worth knowing about.
