A long history...

At the back of the parental house in a shed. There, at the "Pad", was in 1938 in Sprang the start of the company we know as Paulides B.V. It was a time of depression and Johanes (Jo) Paulides didn't have much of a choice but to start his own factory. A man had to earn one's bread. This is the reason why, after his internship at the tram track in Amsterdam, Jo started to sell his own ideas. The first ten years he mostly repaired electrical machines for various customers. Next to that tools for the leather industry and machines for sewing machines were designed and fabricated. Brabant didn't encounter the war. This permitted the development of the factory.

The sewing-machine motor - Type 106

The Paulides Electro sewing-machine motor is a two pole commutator machine (universal machine 220VAC), wherefrom the armature winding and field coils are chosen such that the motor output power (0.3hp at 2500rpm and 2.6A) coincides with the necessary energy for the propulsion of the then available household machines. As a speed control of these machine a carbon resistance was selected, since this had proven to ensure the most reliable and maintenance free operation. The principle is that due to the change in "pressure on the carbonplates" the resistance of in- or decreased, which made the machine faster or slower, respectively. The extra external friction brake also enabled fast braking of the machine, which positively influenced the productivity.

In 1961 an LLC was started with Gerrit Neutenboom from Spijkstaal, producer of electrical vehicles. In 1965, in the factory, a room was built for varnishing, to insulate the windings. In 1967 the partnership with Neutenboom ended. Jo Paulides bought his part of the shares and continued independently. His talent as a designer and inventor resulted in, among other things, a weld transformer for 110 and 220 VDC (mainly used in coasters) and diesel driven weld/mains generators.

Soon the factory was enlarged by 70 square metres. In 1961 followed by a production facility of 450 square metres, a canteen, a space for cleaning the hands and a central heating room. In that year the production of brushed DC motors started, which were produced for the transportation of people and goods.

C-Motor

One of the First DC machines from Paulides Electro is the C-motor (1.5hp at 1200rpm) that was used for traction applications in vehicles of Spijkstaal. These battery supplied (48VDC) eight pole serie wound motor had to be as small as possible. Therefore, this is also one of the first wheelmotors, where the motor is placed directly inside the wheel and the bearing of the gearbox was integrated on the end-plate of the motor. Therefore, this motor had a relatively large diameter of 150mm, however, only a short axial length of 40mm. Within Paulides Electro this is one of the first machine were one thousand pieces have been manufactured.

Electrical car

At this moment a growing commercial demand exists to energy efficient hybrid vehicles (e.g. Toyota Prius, Honda Civic, etc.), but already in the seventies a converted Citroen with a 48VDC motor was driving in Sprang-Capelle. Inside four lorry batteries were used which could be switched in parallel (12VDC), series-parallel (24VDC) or in series (48VDC) by means of starter relais. These were controlled from a three position accelerator pedal. Also the gearbox was still available, which enables the pre-selection of various maximum speeds (max 70km/hrs) although at the expense of a reduced action radius.

Gansow veegmachine

A request at the end of the seventies of sweeper manufacturer Gansow led to a compund motor of 0.75 kW at 1300rpm. In first instance was this motor supplied as a prototype for a new sweeper, where the motor via a belt-drive was connected to the brush. The large quantaties are arranged by Lex van der Kamp and this resulted in Alpatek (more about Alpatek will follow below). In time almost 10,000 motors have been supplied, which were transported by ourselves to Bergkamen-Rünthe, Germany.

Alpatek generator (AD65)

Shipbuilders requested a powerful DC shunt generator. These 65A generators are being used in Ward Leonard motor control systems for electrical steer applications in ships, for example for the automatic pilot on the river. The diesel engine drives the AD65 (1.5 kW at 1600rpm) which supplies a NOS1,5 (1.5 kW at 1500rpm) steering motor. The AD65 is one of the first motors within Paulides B.V. that utilize a wave winding instead of a lap winding. This, together with the lamination design, ensures that the generator saturates, which limits the output power of the generator. Lately the profile wire in the armature is being replaced by multiple parallel strands. Additionally Paulides B.V. builds a more powerful shunt generator, i.e. the ADM5 (5.0 kW at 1600rpm).

1986 - Formation of Alpatek B.V.

The name Alpatek is build up from Al(exander) Pa(ulides) and Tek(technique). The starting letters of both founders and owners of the trade company and, of course, the basis for their products. Commercially a "smart" name: beginning with an "A", so you automatically are at the top of all classifications. Alpatek, a trading company, sells products of Paulides B.V. and other suppliers. Moreover Alpatek has access to the production capacity of Paulides B.V.; the factory has the possibility to combine their own designs with products of others. Electrical machines (own product) and gearboxes (product supplier) are for example combined. In this way drive trains for large and small electric vehicles are established. Paulides B.V. tests the new product and completely assemblies them. Since 1986 a large customer database has been established, both nationally and internationally. Alpatek supplies approximately 60% of the products directly and indirectly to foreign companies, in Europe and globally. For more information you can check the website: www.alpatek.nl.

Bowthrusters

The cooperation between Spijkstaal and Paulides B.V. also resulted in the design of bowthrusters for yachts. Together, an efficient noiseless brushed DC motor (SP50; 3.7 kW at 1600rpm) was designed that did not occupy a lot of space within the yachts, since the motor is placed by welding a steel tube crossways through the bow or the stern and provides a means to direct-drive a propeller (most efficient solution). At the moment, these bow- and stern-thrusters are available in 12VDC (CP40), 24VDC (CP50 and CP90) and 48VDC (CP40 and CP90), available in the following thrust-levels, i.e. 40kgf (CP40), 50kgf (CP50) and 90kgf (CP90).

A166PM

With the introduction of the A166PM in 2003, we have extended our permanent magnet portfolio with a very powerful motor. By using the advantages of bonded rare earth magnets we have designed a machine that can also deliver a relatively large power from a small volume. Also is this compact volume a large improvement over induction machines, e.g. compared to the same size standard IEC 80 motor, the A166PM delivers about 3 times the power. Further, also the efficiency is considerably improved, where in battery-supplied applications and a directly connected motor, an efficiency of >80% in almost the entire torque-speed characteristic is not an exception.

A202PM

Recently also many request are for a motor that can deliver even more power than the A166PM. This motor was not yet part of Paulides B.V. range and hence a special lamination has been designed within Paulides B.V. This motor utilises the capabilities of sintered rare earth magnets, which enables an even higher power density (in comparison to similar size induction machine about 4 times). This motor can also be supplied with different number of poles, which enables the motor to be used in slow speeds and low and elevated voltage applications.