For Ligonier firm, motors not on the mend for long

Timm Vanderelli of Kress Motors
in Ligonier with his invention,
the Axial Flux Switched DC Motor.
(Photo: John Heller/Post-Gazette)

Re-published from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
June 18, 2013 12:43 am
By Daniel Sisgoreo, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Electric motors are used everywhere: in cars, in planes, in sewage pumping stations. But when the motors break down, they can take weeks to repair—a time frame that is problematic when the motors are handling essential tasks like pumping a town's water or keeping a person on life support.

Kress Motors LLC, a Ligonier company that was founded in 2009 by local attorney Lynda Dupre, thinks it has a solution.

The company's Axial Flux Motor is free of the complex electrical windings and magnets that make up traditional electric motors. As a result, the design is easier to repair: Rather than hauling a large, heavy broken motor out of a water pumping station and waiting weeks for it to be repaired, a mechanic could repair a similarly damaged Kress motor on-site in a matter of hours, said Brian Ott, the company's chief technical officer.

And the motor could continue to run even while a mechanic repairs its parts, Mr. Ott said.

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