Parvalux Electric Motors Ltd is a British manufacturer of fractional horsepower

gear A gear or gearwheel is a rotating machine part typically used to transmit rotational motion and/or torque by means of a series of teeth that engage with compatible teeth of another gear or other part. The teeth can be integral saliences or ...

electric motors An electric motor is a machine that converts electrical energy into mechanical energy. Most electric motors operate through the interaction between the motor's magnetic field and electric current in a wire winding to generate Laplace force i ...

. Based in

Poole Poole () is a coastal town and seaport on the south coast of England in the Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole unitary authority area in Dorset, England. The town is east of Dorchester, Dorset, Dorchester and adjoins Bournemouth to the east ...

in Southern

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

. In December 2018, Parvalux was acquired by maxon motor AG.

History

The name ‘Parvalux’ derives from the

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

' parvulus' and ' lux' and means 'young light', alluding to the hopes that founder Leslie J. Clark had for the

Romford Romford is a large List of places in London, town in east London, east London, England, located northeast of Charing Cross. Part of the London Borough of Havering, the town is one of the major Metropolitan centres of London, metropolitan centr ...

-based business where he first began selling motor rewinds in 1947. After relocating to

Bournemouth Bournemouth ( ) is a coastal resort town in the Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole unitary authority area, in the ceremonial county of Dorset, England. At the 2021 census, the built-up area had a population of 196,455, making it the largest ...

in 1957, the company moved from simply re-winding motors to designing and manufacturing complete gear-motor units for industrial applications. Parvalux prospered for forty years through continued expansion of its product offer to cover a broad range of AC/DC electric motors and gearboxes, enabling the business to sell into a diverse range of markets and applications ― all over the world. In 2003, Steven Clark took over as Chief Executive. In 2008 Parvalux acquired rival firm and DC motor application specialist EMD Drives Systems of Halstead, thereby creating the UK’s largest privately owned manufacturer of sub 1 kW electric motors and gearboxes. Until that time EMD had shared a similar history to Parvalux, initially winning recognition in the 1960s as volume AC motor supplier to household names such as Qualcast and Hotpoint, but then moved exclusively into DC products by the 1980s where they would compete directly with Parvalux for some 30 years. EMD was relocated in its entirety to the Bournemouth headquarters during 2009, with key members of the EMD staff relocating to join the newly merged business. The merger allowed Parvalux to offer products in much higher quantities than previously possible and cemented this position with a new 'product development and design' function (PDD). The company has 185 employees in three production sites in Bournemouth, Dorset. Parvalux generates revenues of 23 million British pounds annually, with just over 40% being exported around the world.

Applications

One notable application of a Parvalux product was documented as under test at the university of California in 1966 for inclusion on the cancelled

Voyager program (Mars) The Voyager Mars Program was a planned series of uncrewed NASA probes to the planet Mars. The missions were planned, as part of the Apollo Applications Program, between 1966 and 1968 and were scheduled for launch in 1974–75. The probes we ...

mission.
The Brayebrook Observatory in Cambridgeshire uses two Parvalux AC induction gear-motor units to operate dome and shutter functions.
In 2006 Team Joker used a Parvalux unit as a servo motor on their combat robot 'Joker'.
Classic Flight cite Parvalux's PM60LWS as a component in a build-your-own motion base for flight simulation.

Current Products

*Motors ** Brushless DC electric motors **AC

Induction motor An induction motor or asynchronous motor is an AC motor, AC electric motor in which the electric current in the rotor (electric), rotor that produces torque is obtained by electromagnetic induction from the magnetic field of the stator winding ...

s **Variable speed AC/DC series wound or DC shunt wound motors (see Torque and speed of a DC motor) ** Brushed DC electric motors (Permanent Magnet) *Gearboxes ** Worm drive **

Epicyclic gearing An epicyclic gear train (also known as a planetary gearset) is a gear reduction assembly consisting of two gears mounted so that the center of one gear (the "planet") revolves around the center of the other (the "sun"). A carrier connects the ...

- (planetary gearheads with integrated Permanent Magnet motors) New stand-alone 'HP' range released Autumn 2008 **inline/right-angle

s **helical/spur

s **double reduction

s Parvalux also now offers a fully bespoke OEM product design service for quantities over 5,000 units.

External links

Parvalux UK

Parvalux USA

Parvalux France

Parvalux Germany

Parvalux Poland

Parvalux South Africa

Parvalux Spain distr.

References

. . . {{Citation , last = Sacks , first = Tony , title = Parvalux buys EMD to create UK's largest gear-motor maker , journal = Drives & Controls , volume = 2008 , issue = September , year = 2008 , page = 1 , url = http://www.drives.co.uk/fullstory.asp?id=2364 , url-status = dead , archiveurl = https://web.archive.org/web/20110725050539/http://www.drives.co.uk/fullstory.asp?id=2364 , archivedate = 2011-07-25 . Electrical engineering companies of the United Kingdom Companies based in Bournemouth Electric motor manufacturers