Linear vibration motors have small diameters for VR equipment
Many commercially available smartphones and smartwatches today are equipped with a vibration motor. The primary purpose is to vibrate in a certain pattern to notify users of an incoming message, and the motor may be equipped with a function to control vibrations to make users feel as if they were pressing a button. With the advent of virtual reality (VR) equipment such as smart gloves and headsets, vibration motors are also installed in portable devices. Other applications are in stylus pens. To meet this demand for vibration motors, Nidec claims its CA series of linear vibration motors are the smallest-class diameters available.
The group of small cylindrical vibration motors has been developed based on larger conventional vibration motors.
The CA series comprises three vibration motors, CA3, CA7-VH5 and CA7-VH9 and are all primarily intended to be built into stylus pens. By replicating the way a pen tip vibrates when writing words, the motors recreate a tactile sense to make users feel as if they were actually writing on paper. The motors’ sizes and vibration strength are designed to differ by type.
The CA series vibration motors were developed based on Nidec’s magnetic circuit design technology, which was cultivated in the company’s design of HDD spindle motors. The motors consume only 1.3mW to 6mW of electricity, which is approximately one-fiftieth of the power consumed by the vibration motors installed in general smartphones, calculated Nidec. This high-level energy efficiency reduces the required capacity of the battery to be installed in the smartphones, and contributes to the weight reduction.
Nidec manufactures vibration motors for smartphones which are designed to make light, thin, short, and compact products.
Nidec was established in Kyoto, Japan in 1973 by its chairman Shigenobu Nagamori. In 1979, Nidec became the first company in the world to successfully commercialise a direct drive spindle motor for HDDs based on a brushless DC motor. The motor manufacturer supplies motors, drives, generators and related products for use in a diverse range of applications including computers, smartphones, home appliances, automobiles, manufacturing plants and robots.
