We develop smart drive solutions with a focus on value for your business and customer.
Consumers are asking for better products in terms of comfort, quality and technology. We design solutions to exceed their expectations, creating more value for you with optimised drives.
What is unique about our way of working is that we are not bound by a traditional method, we look for new ways to achieve better results. We move past the specifications to discover the solution.
READING TIME: 5 MINUTES
Air-conditioning is about comfort, so we developed a unique drive solution that is extremely quiet and smart.
James Hammond, Fisher & Paykel Technologies, Chief Engineer
Smart features through software capability
At Fisher & Paykel Technologies we are constantly developing market leading solutions that can be integrated into your products. This provides you with unique competitive advantages and enables you to innovate your products.
Our air movement and HVAC solutions are equipped with a patented motor control solution using Sensorless Sinusoidal Control. This control commutation ensures the smoothest torque delivery and accurate speed control, reducing the motor noise level.
The motor controller uses a smart microcontroller that opens new doors, think of smart features such as Blocked Filter Detection and Self-Cleaning Fan Mode. The programmability allows us to iteratively update the control software and tune the motor performance, we can deliver tailored and optimised drive solutions for every HVAC application.
With this motor platform we are continuously developing new functionality and smart features, adding real time value to your products.
We engineered a drive solution with customisation in mind to deliver tailored performance for every application.
We can optimise the winding configuration, winding material and rotor design to meet each specific application’s noise, efficiency and performance requirements.
We offer a range of control options to meet your noise, price and efficiency needs. We can flexibly change motor controller without making any physical changes to the motor.
To make our motors integrate in your applications we can adjust the mounting configuration, shaft geometry and water sealing.
We engineered a drive solution with customisation and integration in mind, to deliver tailored and optimal performance for every application.
The unique stator design allows flexibility
Rotor designed for low noise
During our extensive market and consumer research we found that noise is one of the key buying factors when people buy HVAC products. Using our thirty years of experience in magnetic design we developed a motor that is quieter than its competitors.
We have pioneered a unique magnetization method in the HVAC motor market. We have invested many hours designing and testing the magnetization method to optimise it for our internal rotor motors. The patented magnetization method ensures smoother flux transition and less torque ripple to reduce vibration – resulting in what your consumers demand, an extremely quiet motor.
Chief Engineer, Fisher & Paykel Technologies, Auckland, New Zealand
“We worked hard to develop the best drive solution for HVAC systems, I’m proud we succeeded”
James Hammond was born in Auckland in 1991 and studied Mechanical Engineering (Honours) at the University of Auckland. He has worked with HVAC Motors for more than 4 years at Fisher & Paykel Technologies. He often travels to China to work with our customers, suppliers, and manufacturing and development teams.
Discover new career opportunities on our careers website
The unique stator design allows flexibility
READING TIME: 4 MINUTES
We partnered with a global food equipment manufacturer who was struggling to differentiate in their market. They were originally looking for our help with designing a new feature that would give them an edge against the competition. We undertook a customer-led sprint to establish how the machine should work as a whole, in order to develop a stronger point-of-difference that could be sustained long-term.
Working through collaborative design-sprints, we were able to uncover the core customer benefits and requirements of this product – allowing for a new and improved machine that addressed the consistent issues their customers had with reliability, maintenance, and overall noise.
With our direct-drive motor technology, this machine is now more reliable, quieter and smarter. By looking beyond new features, we were also able to improve the product’s safety features – all delivered with a simplified product design.
The approach and outcome enabled this brand to reposition as a leader in the market, and get effective cut-through amongst the growing global competition.
This manufacturer was able to re-establish their position in the market – shifting away from just their historical brand credibility, to now having a reputation for innovative technology.
The industrial pumps market was traditionally lacking customer-focus and innovation. We partnered with one pump manufacturer who wanted to change that.
Their industrial pumps division hadn’t seen product innovation in 15 years. They were heavily reliant on customers knowing and trusting their brand – but as the competition grew, and product differentiation faded, a new approach was required.
Pumps are used in heavy-duty situations – across very diverse and challenging environments. They required a motor and controller that could operate reliably in these conditions. Consistent high-performance was an essential requirement.
Collaborative design sprints were held to look at the machine as a whole and better understand the problems that needed to be solved. Working with their specialists, we looked at how all the components within the system interacted with each other to then create software that out-performed their competitors.
Multiple scenarios were sketched and tested to ensure that we delivered the best possible product, based on customer requirements. The outcome was us designing a much smarter pump, with higher performance and adjustable settings for each application/user’s condition.
Gentle Annie was the world’s first use of a brushless DC motor in a washing machine and this project sparked the innovation culture that has been the DNA of Fisher & Paykel Technologies ever since.
By taking a system-level view to this project, our team went beyond designing a better washing machine feature, to developing the revolutionary product, now commonly known as Gentle Annie. Gentle Annie was the world’s first washing machine to remove customer pain points around reliability, efficiency and noise.
Our team not only replaced the existing motor and gearbox technology, with the world-first brushless direct current motor, they also created the first generation of 'smarter' computer-controlled motor technology in washing.
Gentle Annie was the result of numerous rapid prototyping cycles, where our team built, tested and learned what was necessary to bring their vision and innovation to life. New and innovative manufacturing processes had to be developed along the way, as no other manufacturer had these capabilities at the time – but this paved the way for more flexible processes in the future.
NEW ZEALAND 78 Springs Rd, East Tamaki, Auckland
USA 695 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa, California
CHINA 551 Qixinghe Road, Huangdao District, Shandong
Along with 10 R&D centers, 28 industrial parks, 122 manufacturing plants and 108 marketing centers across the globe.
