Rising neodymium prices overseas created a need to develop motors with alternative materials. This led to an all new 4-pole DC motor platform design to build into new Dewalt cordless tools.
Company Stanley Black & Decker
Role Lead mechanical engineer
Product High-power brushed motor, launched with 20V Max Reciprocating Saw (Dewalt DCS387)
Launched 2014
Manufacturing Location Mexico
power, size and cost.
Tradeoffs are inevitable when developing a new product. Stanley Black & Decker was investigating magnet material alternatives to minimize dependency on neodymium and lower the BOM cost. To achieve a similar performance as neodymium motors, the tradeoff was size - alternative magnet materials required increased volume.
drop-in motor
During the initial phase of the project, I worked closely with a cross-functional team of engineers, designers and marketing specialists to establish volumetric design constraints for the new “high-power” housed brushed motor. A housed motor architecture was chosen to hold high diametric concentricity between bearing supports and minimize air gap between rotor and stator. This also meant the high power motors would be ‘drop-in’ solutions to existing tools with minimum re-design.
global supply and manufacturing
One exciting aspect of working on a new motor platform at Stanley Black & Decker (SB&D) was the fact that motors are designed, prototyped, tested and assembled in-house at SB&D’s manufacturing facilities around the world. With full ownership of the BOM, I worked closely with supply chain to source parts and subassemblies to meet design specifications.
Designing the motor was a large portion of the effort, however significant energy also was dedicated to supporting SB&D manufacturing to bring up a new assembly cell in the Mexico facility. I also supported the design of various new jigs, assembly fixtures and quality inspection tooling which were required to assemble and verify the final motors were in spec.
