Permanent magnets are everywhere from aerospace to automotive and they are in nearly every electric motor. They are used in a huge range of sensors to offshore wind generators and in every loudspeaker.
Hirst has been providing industry leading magnetic solutions for over 60 years and is the leading provider of pulsed field magnetometers (PFMs) used by magnet manufacturers to develop and characterise the high performing magnets underpinning these application.
Aerospace
Hirst has supplied a range of instruments and magnetiser products for decades to the aerospace industry, mostly for the magnetic calibration of sensors including backup compasses, cockpit oxygen sensors and fuel level sensors.
Hirst has also provided magnetisers to companies that manufacture a range of other parts including oil actuators, joysticks and reed relays. A few examples of the hundreds of systems sold can be found in the magnetiser and demagnetiser products webpage.
Automotive and Electric Vehicles
Hirst has supplied a range of instruments, magnetiser and demagnetiser products to the automotive industry. Hirst also provides quality control solutions such as gaussmeters and fluxmeters. Hirst has been providing magnetisers and custom fixtures to motor manufacturers since the 1960s The include interior permanent magnet (IPM) and surface permanent magnet (SPM) motors including skew and Halbach arrays into motors of all sizes for use in automotive applications. Hirst has also been supplying magnetisers and custom fixtures for axial flux motors since 2005.
Many de-magnetiser systems have been supplied to businesses making bearings and other machined parts for use in automotive.
Clean energy
Hirst has been involved in providing instrumentation, magnetisers and custom fixtures to generator manufacturers for a number of years for wind turbines of all sizes. The largest fixture and part Hirst have worked on have been magnet assemblies 5 metres in diameter for wind turbine application.
A few examples of systems sold can be found in the magnetiser products webpage or the custom fixture webpage
Audio
Hirst has supplied a range of instruments, magnetisers and custom fixtures to audio businesses mostly for loudspeakers production since the 1950s. Speaker sizes range from high performance small speakers to very large concert speaker and today the majority of the magnetisers sold are to premium audio businesses. A few examples of the hundreds of systems sold can be found in the magnetiser products webpage or the custom fixture webpage.
Medical
Hirst has supplied a range of gaussmeter instruments, magnetiser and de-magnetiser products to the automotive industry. The gaussmeter instruments are used to determine safe 5 gauss limits for MRI scanners and other medical equipment using high magnetic fields. Many demagnetiser systems have been supplied to businesses making needles or blades and other machined parts for use in medical applications.
Recycling
Hirst has supplied a range of gaussmeter, magnet scanner instruments andmagnetiser products to the recycling equipment industry over the years specifically for ferrous metal separation applications including over-band separators. The first generation of M800- 400kJ Magnetiser with custom magnetising fixture and mechanical handling for the 1 Tonne Ferrite magnet used in an over-band separator product, the fixture weighted 25 Tonnes and the first one was shipped in 2005 and is still in service today.
Magnetisers and Demagentisers are also needed in the recycling of rare earth magnets which is becoming increasingly important.