Maglev Chip Finds Niche in Power Tools

andhar writes: "This story in the Financial Times just goes to show you that it's often not the sexiest application of a technology that makes the best business sense. 'Today, while "maglev" trains remain a technological curiosity, linear motors are being quietly exploited in the less obviously glamorous field of machine tools. One of the leaders in such applications is Forest-Liné, a French company that makes products vital to the competitiveness of much larger industrial businesses' My margaritas want a maglev blender!"

Yeah, so's my toothbrush

[Belly]

This is news? My electric toothbrush has a linear motor..

http://www.panasonic.com/consumer_electronics/pe rs onal_care/oral_care.asp#technobrush

curiosity?

[MiTEG]

"maglev" trains remain a technological curiosity?
I disagree. In China (actually Germany I think), one is being built now. Maybe still a curiousity, but only as much as anything else that is part of an evolving technology.

In my mind, the best application, and perhaps the most glamorous, is in energy storage using electromagnetic flywheels. A few years back, Scientific American published an article about electromagnetic flywheels being used as backup generators; get them spinning once and bury them underground, with almost no friction then spin for a LONG time. Power goes off, all you have to do is turn on the generator and you've got power to the length of time relative to the mass of the flywheel. For a while that was part of the big hype about hydrogen powered fuel cells in cars, though the 100,000RPM flywheel seems to seems to have scared away a lot of people.

Re:curiosity?

[altgrr]

There was a Maglev railway set up way back in 1984 to take passengers from Birmingham International station to the airport it served, and it worked, albeit briefly. However, it was closed in 1995 and a new, but far less exciting, railway link is being set up.

This site [google.co.uk] (cache of a BBC page) gives a few details on the old Maglev system that was in use - it doesn't look as impressive as the 350mph+ trains being trialled in Japan though.