Power Supply Technology (PST) proposes ideal solutions through full customization as consumer needs quickly become more diverse by leveraging its technical prowess as a specialized manufacturer that directly tackles customer challenges.
PST is a specialized manufacturer that develops, designs, manufactures and sells power supplies and magnet rolls. In this interview, we talk with the team from the PST MG Design Section under Engineering Department 1 about their hard work every day to develop and design magnet rolls that achieve the magnetic waveforms and specifications required by our business partners.
ESTABLISHING UNCOMPROMISING QUALITY CONTROL TO PROPOSE POWER SUPPLIES SATISFYING THE NEEDS OF OUR BUSINESS PARTNERS
Shinya Tabata:
As a specialized manufacturer, PST provides switching and high voltage power supplies as well as high voltage transformers in addition to the magnet rolls that my team handles. All of these products are fully customized to address specific needs of our business partners. Our company deals with everything from the development and design through the manufacture and sale of these products. Because PST mainly deals with power supply products, our work every day emphasizes the delivery of high-quality products to customers that are both reliable and safe.
Source: Power Supply Technology website
Shinya Tabata:
Yes. We have locations in China, Hong Kong, and Thailand.
The bases in Japan primarily handle development, design and sales, while our sites overseas focus on manufacturing and sales. PST currently manufactures its magnet rolls in China and Thailand.
This means our team is in constant communication with those overseas sites. This ongoing exchange of information moves things forward while keeping us up to date on not only new products but also the quality and management of mass market products.
Shinya Tabata:
Most people are not very familiar with the word, but magnet rolls (Fig. 1) feed toner in copy machines. As a vital component, magnet rolls influence image quality. Our business partners capitalize on our magnet rolls for precise and consistent toner feeding in the pursuit of the best copying quality. We are highly aware of this in everything that we do.
The magnetic waveform is the first factor ensuring quality. We have to accurately reproduce the magnetic waveform required by each business partner as well as fabricate and manage magnet rolls in a way that limits variations caused during mass production. PST most often assembles and delivers the cylindrical metal sleeve and flange to our business partners. During these deliveries, we have to ensure a total runout accuracy of about 10 to 20 microns for A3 size copying, such as those that are 18 to 20 millimeters in diameter. In other words, we have to treat and manage magnet rolls as extremely high precision products. This is a surmountable task.
Fig. 1 Magnet Roll
MISSION TO REALIZE COMPLETELY CUSTOM PRODUCTS LIKE NONE OTHER
Shinya Tabata:
Yes, it does. Our magnet rolls are not general-purpose products. We tailored each to specific requirements of our business partners.
Takeshi Shimokawatoko:
The design philosophy differs business partner to business partner because no magnet roll is the same. Our industry is one expected to fabricate products based on the needs of each.
Takeshi Shimokawatoko:
Not very often. Every design has a totally different feel.
Shinya Tabata:
Magnet rolls differ by grade and model, which makes customizing the designs to each business partner essential. On average every year, we design seven or eight completely new models.
Shinya Tabata:
As I said before, our team must design products tailored to the specific specifications of each business partner. Our mission is to get as close to satisfying 100% of these requirements as we can.
As an industry, copy machine manufacturers are attempting to realize greater energy savings and a longer product lifespan. We collaborate with each of our business partners to propose and develop magnet rolls that can contribute to achieving both energy savings and a longer product lifespan. When everything is said and done, our goal is to have built a win-win relationships that make our business partners as well as PST happy.
The voltage necessary to feed toner is one specific example of potential energy savings. Even though the motor output must stay the same, a magnetic roll that produces an effective waveform can conserve power. We take advantage of the technology that we have to achieve ideal magnetic waveforms that support these energy savings.
In regard to a longer product lifespan, innovations to the sleeve—whether enhancing surface treatments or material changes—increase the durability of the metal component on the outside of the magnet roll. Sometimes, we enter into joint development with our business partners depending on their request.
Our experts who are versed in not only magnetic circuits but also metal machining and surface treatments enable us to integrate all of these technologies.
Our business partners seem to have greater needs for energy savings and a longer product lifespan each year while still pursuing better image quality and higher speed printing, which are the core functions of a copy machine.
Takeshi Shimokawatoko:
Higher printing speeds require the metal around the magnet to rotate faster to more quickly feed toner. As a result, the magnet roll must generate an attractive force equivalent to the higher centrifugal force acting on the toner, which means new requirements that include both strengthening and controlling stronger magnetic forces and unique waveforms. The key to success is the ability to ramp up the speed and commercialize products. This is where JMAG plays a role in our development process.
Mayu Maruyama:
We have to use fully custom rather than standard magnets.
Katsuhiko Minaga:
All of our materials are designed with the material manufacturer. We specifically customize rare earth magnets.
DRIVING EFFICIENCY IN THE COMMERCIALIZATION PROCESS USING JMAG
Takeshi Shimokawatoko:
We first started using JMAG-Studio. As PST aimed to more rapidly respond to the needs of its business partners, we decide to upgrade to JMAG-Designer because the software had great potential to improve process efficiency when fabricating and commercializing prototypes.
Shinya Tabata:
We had been using JMAG-Studio to review various trends, but there were some limitations when running analyses with complex geometry or simulations with numerous elements and comparing results against the actual machine. We thought JMAG-Designer could help us overcome these issues.
Takeshi Shimokawatoko:
The problems that Shinya and I have experienced most with magnet rolls generally involves the sintered magnets that require a uniform orientation in a fully magnetized state. The two problems that we typically face are varying the strength of the magnetization ratio and flexibility orienting the magnet. After extensive review of JMAG-Designer, I’ve seen how easy it is to adjust the orientation and magnetization ratio. We thought these simulations would directly contribute to faster exploration of designs and conditions.
Shinya Tabata:
Our magnets do not always have a fully magnetized state that is consistent throughout the material because they don’t have symmetric waveforms. The size and specifications of each magnet piece are never the same, which makes it very difficult to reproduce a magnetic waveform.
Takeshi Shimokawatoko:
The settings in JMAG-Designer are much easier than JMAG-Studio. I remember having to calculate coordinates in my head and other things like that that made creating three-dimensional models quite complex. JMAG-Designer streamlines the entire process to make it easier, faster, and more precise. That’s what makes it so appealing.
Shinya Tabata:
It was hard to really use JMAG-Studio without a dedicated engineer versed in simulation technology. We didn’t have the resources for that though. So, to use JMAG-Studio, we configured a macro that simplified the simulations to enable us to run our analyses. However, we were at a loss if a particular model didn’t support macros. On the other hand, JMAG-Designer is intuitive and clear, which seems to make it much easier for our engineers to set up an analysis themselves.
Shinya Tabata:
In about 2015, we learned that JMAG-Studio had reached the end of its life and had to decide how to move forward. We’d heard about all the things JMAG-Designer could do, but we didn’t have enough information ourselves yet to make the jump.
Mayu Maruyama:
Around 2011 through 2012, we had no other choice but to run two-dimensional analyses in JMAG-Studio and three-dimensional analyses in JMAG-Designer. JMAG-Designer was still very new at the time, and we encountered numerous errors.
Shinya Tabata:
Our first big obstacle to adopting JMAG-Designer was gaining approval from our company to purchase a license, so we started off by renting one. We spent about a year working with the JMAG team to discover what JMAG-Designer really could offer us. If JMAG-Designer could check off the list of things that we needed, we intended to purchase an official license.
Mayu Maruyama:
We use Solidworks simulations, mechanical and intensity analyses as well as stress and temperature analyses.
Shinya Tabata:
We have to use a wide range of simulation technology to satisfy the requirements or our business partners. As Mayu Maruyama joined our team and PST recognized its need for broad simulation technologies, JMAG-Designer had started to provide much more enhanced features. Everything seemed to have aligned at the right time for us to finally make the switch over to JMAG-Designer.
Shinya Tabata:
That’s hard to say because it depends on the complexity of the request. Generally though, it takes three to four simulations to bring a product into fruition while running about one simulation every two months.
In some cases, we propose a magnetic waveform without fabricating anything at all. Of course, one purpose is to reduce the number of prototypes that we have to build, but it also seems to help us make these proposals more quickly.
The magnetic waveform is what our business partners want to see. Not too long ago, we could only present a waveform after a prototype had been built, but simulations let us present the waveform before any fabrication at all. JMAG-Designer has been useful in this respect.
Development cost reductions by our business partners drive our own reductions in development costs. We strive to speed up development, reduce costs, and shorten turnaround while actively using simulations.
THE AMAZING PERSUASIVENESS OF VISUALIZATION THROUGH SIMULATIONS
Katsuhiko Minaga:
PST has solidified a base of metal and other types of molds after using injection molding for more than 30 years. Injection molding and extrusion molding are quite different though. Injection molding can apply a magnetic field throughout the entire process because resin is poured and cooled right in the mold. Extrusion molding uses a series of processes. The material comes out of the mold before fully hardened. The way to apply the magnetic field differs each time because the material is almost like gelatin. We hope to use extrusion molding when injection molding technology doesn’t provide the results that we need. This case study used simulations for a theoretical proof of that concept.
Shinya Tabata:
We decided to take advantage of the optimization features because PST was at a point where it needed to renew its equipment and molds.
Mayu Maruyama:
I wanted to make the extrusion molding as efficient as possible because we don’t have the time and money to invest in it.
Katsuhiko Minaga:
PST has long advocated internally for theoretical explanations to things. This is because the phenomena we work with is invisible. Visualization through simulations has persuasive power, especially when used in development and prototyping processes.
I was particularly amazed by the simulation results of this case study. We were able to visualize and show an accurate correlation between the optimization results and measurements taken prior to the case study, which is appealing when thinking about how to demonstrate an idea or pitch a project in the future.
Katsuhiko Minaga:
Injection molding is not inherently inferior because each has its own pros and cons. However, extrusion molding offers higher productivity at lower costs due to its continuous production process that offers reliable moldings with no loss. Injection molding does have some loss because it requires everything to stop once the resin is poured into the mold, but we can apply a magnetic field to the material while it cools when fabricating magnets. This does make injection molding superior in the sense of using technology to control high magnetic forces and other characteristics like that.
The industry has two choices when fabricating magnets. One is to make something cheap with average characteristics. The other is to make a high-quality material with fantastic characteristics. We often require the technical capabilities of the latter because PST is in a sector that deals with completely new domains. Technologies are essential for that reason. I believe continuous production and other techniques that can reliably fabricate magnets with fantastic characteristics would give us a competitive advantage. That’s what we are working on now.
Shinya Tabata:
The ability to fabricate thin magnets is another benefit of extrusion molding. It’s difficult to make long and thin magnets using injection molding. Extrusion molding can due to its proficiency at extruding long and thin materials.
We talked a little before about energy savings. In the past, we have produced magnet rolls that had a roughly 30-millimeter diameter. As magnet rolls become thinner due to miniaturization and layering of rare earth elements, some of our business partners need magnets thinner than those induction molding can produce. In anticipation of these future needs, we have no choice but to see what extrusion molding has to offer.
Mayu Maruyama:
We analyze magnet rolls to decide what mold to use, the magnetic forces necessary, and other aspects of the design. Our current focus is to accomplish the same tasks done in JMAG-Studio in JMAG-Designer, which we have been able to do to some degree. We are also progressing with simulations to optimize our extrusion molding devices.
More recently, we have been working with one of our business partners to examine magnetizing yokes designed specifically for rare earth materials.
Takeshi Shimokawatoko:
I would say this has more to do with putting in place the necessary infrastructure than standardizing analyses.
Mayu Maruyama:
We did configure the macro in Microsoft Excel for JMAG-Studio so that anyone could set up an analysis and hope to do the same with JMAG-Designer. We are building a system with the help of the JMAG Support Team that should make it easy for everyone to add custom materials to JMAG-Designer, register geometry in the Geometry Library, and specify other settings like that. This has helped reduce the error between our analysis results and the actual phenomena.
Takeshi Shimokawatoko:
My impression so far is that the error is much smaller in the system configured by Mayu Maruyama than the one we used for JMAG-Studio. The reproducibility had been 70% to 95%.
Shinya Tabata:
JMAG-Studio struggled to pinpoint areas where the magnet force was weak, but JMAG-Designer clearly finds these spots as far as I have seen, which is astonishing.
Mayu Maruyama:
JMAG-Designer can replicate aspects of the waveform that JMAG-Studio could not. The results can precisely replicate each waveform. I hope that we can leverage this kind of experience and the extensive analysis expertise that we’ve gained to propose optimal solutions that address challenges faced by our business patterns.
Mayu Maruyama:
Yes. The waveforms were not as complex before.
Mayu Maruyama:
Yes, it is. I think that we will be able to get a general idea from the analysis results without building a prototype.
Mayu Maruyama:
As I said, the magnets that we use are all custom materials that are not in the JMAG Material Database. We used to do a lot of work to ensure that the custom materials that we add to JMAG have the correct characteristics, but that has become a lot easier now.
Another challenge has been precisely replicating the magnetization process. It is hard to model a simulation that replicates our approach to prototyping. We are currently debating what the best solution might be.
Shinya Tabata:
One factor seems to be structural variations. We are comparing analyses and trying many different things to see what might work.
Mayu Maruyama:
I don’t think analyses can precisely simulate every type of manufacturing process. I would say it is how you approach things that is important.
Katsuhiko Minaga:
I think the biggest obstacle to using extrusion molding is the design of the mold. To produce the magnets that we want, we need to know the best way to combine magnetic and non-magnetic materials in the molds as well as learn when and where to use them. We can’t just fabricate something to find out anymore. We need to figure out the design necessary for a mold to achieve a specific magnet pattern. Once we know the magnet pattern and surface magnetic flux density that we want, we have to work out what type of mold to use and how to arrange the magnetic materials.
If we can learn the various magnet patterns provided by a variety of molds, another way would be to simply choose the desired mold.
Shinya Tabata:
Our final goal is to achieve an automated design process, but our present objective is to discover what happens when we modify some aspect of the design. We are exploring how far we can push the boundaries right now.
Fig. 2 Structure with Multiple Ferrite Pieces
Fig. 3 Irregular Waveform Produced by the Magnetic Roll
INTERNAL EXPANSION AND USE OF TECHNOLOGIES GAINED THROUGH FUTURE TRIALS
Mayu Maruyama:
There is some overlap to what we have already discussed, but I want to optimize our molds and the molding process, reduce labor during prototyping, and automate and optimize the production process. I’d also like to take a deep dive into products other than magnet rolls for copy machines. In terms of optimizing molds and the molding process, we can now actually fabricate an extrusion molding system after validating the concept through simulation. In terms of new development efforts, I hope to take advantage of our experience in areas outside of magnetic rolls for copy machines, which is what we mostly handle now.
Shinya Tabata:
PST handles transformer products too, so I hope that we can contribute to these other products as well.
Shinya Tabata:
We do have relationships with other departments and hope to not only introduce technology but exchange other information too. Our transformer design department used JMAG-Studio as well. That is why I also hope to work with them too while sharing what we learn with other departments.
Mayu Maruyama:
I am sure everyone will start using it once we have the infrastructure in place to use the software. It’s similar to the macro Excel sheet used to make specifying settings in JMAG-Studio easier. We need to configure something similar to that first I think. Whether for JMAG-Designer or another software, the only approach for everyone to use tools like these is to configure this type of macro. The goal I hope to achieve is a process that lets us complete the entire simulation process all right in JMAG-Designer.
Mayu Maruyama:
I would say it’s the varying shape of the magnets. Simulations for motors can use a one-fourth or one-eighth model due to the symmetry of the geometry, but we have to model each and every magnet. This might not be a problem for magnets with a simple small exterior shape, but we cut ours in strange ways and use a combination of magnets with irregular geometry. That makes everything more complicated.
Moreover, the magnetization for magnet rolls is totally different from motors too. Another challenge has been configuring the circuits that can apply atypical currents. We have been using JMAG Application Notes about the orientation as reference while working with the JMAG Support Team.
Our problems did not really pertain to using the software or creating models but rather deciding when to use a static or transient analysis or what to do about licenses.
Shinya Tabata:
The way that we use magnets for magnet rolls is extremely unique, even in the magnet industry. Nobody really uses magnets the way that we do other than manufacturers who also deal with magnet rolls. People just don’t think about magnets in the way that we do. However, magnet rolls are a vital component to copy machines, which makes our work a must regardless of how difficult it is. Optimistically, the inherent difficulty is what enables us to be a fully custom business.
That is the area where I hope to really capitalize on the features of JMAG-Designer.
Mayu Maruyama:
With my motor design background, I wondered why it’s so hard to get everything to align. The reason is because it’s difficult to pinpoint what is causing what. In the future, we should be able to visually review not only the products that we handle but also the magnetic circuit vectors of the magnetizing yoke. I expect this will help us find weak points, reduce variations, and address other flaws in order to create highest quality designs for our products.
Interviewee
MG Design Section, Engineering Department 1 Team
Senior Manager of MG Product Affairs
Engineering Department 1
Assistant Manager
MG Design Section
Engineering Department 1
Chief Engineer
MG Design Section
Engineering Department 1
MG Design Section
Engineering Department 1
As of September 2024 Interview
(Including employees dispatched from other Group companies
as of January 2024)
Development, design, manufacturing, and sales of magnet rolls
Development, design, manufacturing, and sales of various types of transformers (switching transformers, high voltage transformers)
*PST is the core company in the nms Holdings Group power supply business.
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Information for anyone interested in technology to simulate magnetization
- Power Supply Technology Co., Ltd. : Optimized Design of Extrusion Molding System using Multi-Step Magnetization Function, JMAG Users Conference Proceedings, 2023
- NICHIA CORPORATION : Simulation of Magnetization for Anisotropic Rare-Earth Bonded Magnets, JMAG Users Conference Proceedings, 2017
- NIHON DENJI SOKKI CO., LTD : Magnetization Analysis for Magnets in Small Motors, JMAG Users Conference Proceedings, 2012
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- SANSHIN KINZOKU KOGYO CO.,LTD. : Introduction of JMAG for Magnet Rail Analysis, JMAG Users Conference Proceedings, 2018
- Seikow Chemical Engineering and Machinery, Ltd. : Development of Power Transmission Coupling in Superconducting Levitation Pump by Magnetic Field Analysis, JMAG Users Conference Proceedings, 2017
- Sumitomo Heavy Industries, Ltd. : The Design of Superconducting Magnets Using JMAG, JMAG Users Conference Proceedings, 2012
- Coto Technology : The Value of Magnetic FEA Simulation in Magnetic Sensing Applications, JMAG Users Conference Proceedings, 2010
