Micromech offers a robust range of motion control solutions designed specifically for hazardous zones. Their ATEX-certified lineup includes:

Servo Motors

Micromech’s ATEX-rated servo motors deliver precise, high-performance motion in hazardous environments.

• Parker’s EX Series (Zone 1) – Heavy-duty brushless servo motors certified for Zone 1 gas atmospheres.
• Parker’s EY Series (Zone 2) – Optimized for Zone 2 areas, combining safety with efficient motion control.
• Kollmorgen’s AKME Series – High-performance motors suitable for demanding hazardous applications, offering precision, durability, and compliance.

These servo motors are ideal for applications such as valve actuation, conveyor systems, and automation machinery in explosive atmospheres.

Linear Actuators

Micromech also supplies ATEX-rated linear actuators engineered for precise positioning and reliable operation in hazardous zones.

• Parker’s ETH Series – Designed to integrate seamlessly into automation lines where safety is critical.

Industries Benefiting from Micromech ATEX Products

• Oil & Gas – Safe automation for drilling, processing, and pipeline operations.
• Chemical & Pharmaceutical – Precision motion in environments with flammable vapors or dust.
• Food & Beverage – Hazardous-area compliant automation for production lines.
• Utilities & Energy – Explosion-proof motion solutions for power generation and storage.

Why Choose Micromech

Micromech doesn’t just sell products—they provide expertise in hazardous-area motion control, offering ATEX-certified solutions that combine safety, precision, and reliability. Whether you are integrating new machinery or upgrading existing systems, their range of servo motors and linear actuators ensures compliance without sacrificing performance.

Learn more about Micromech’s ATEX-certified motion products and their suppliers: Contact Us to get in touch and request a quote today.

With many years of experience supplying motion products to medical and pharmaceutical equipment manufacturers, Micromech has earned a reputation for excellence and reliability. We are proud to build long-term partnerships with our customers by offering a first-class service that includes stock holding, technical support, and aftersales service.

Our Product Range Includes:

• Stepper and servo motors

• Frameless servo motors

• DC motors

• Stepper and servo drives

• Actuator motors

• Miniature ballscrews

• Encoders

• Gearboxes

These components are integral to a wide range of high-precision machines and systems, including:

• Perfusion systems

• Centrifugal and peristaltic pumps

• Chromatography systems

• Blood analysis and drug delivery pumps

• Lab analysis equipment

• Medical piston pumps

• Storage and automation systems

• Drug development platforms

Customisation Services

In addition to supplying high-quality components, Micromech offers custom modifications to meet specific application requirements. Our capabilities include:

• Fitting connectors and cable looms

• Integrating temperature sensors

• Attaching lead screws to motor shafts

• Assembling motors, gearboxes, and encoders

• Custom labelling and identification

Contact Us
To learn more about how Micromech can support your next project with precision motion solutions, contact our team.

Servo systems depend on closed-loop feedback motor control to determine the rotor’s position at any given moment. The drive uses this motor feedback loop to properly commutate the motor phases, precisely controlling its torque, position and speed according to the application requirements.

When encoders fail

Although encoders are generally highly accurate and reliable, there are several conditions that can potentially cause errors in rotor position or even the direction of rotation. These errors can be large and catastrophic or small and cumulative. For example, an encoder can break outright or gradually fail over time, sending increasingly erroneous signals.

In a manufacturing environment, the consequences of a failed feedback device may be limited to unplanned downtime and wasteful scrap — undesirable outcomes, but not necessarily dangerous. However, there are many applications where failure of the motor feedback loop is simply not an option.

For example, in a missile-defence system, a position error in an imaging gantry or flight-control system could be the difference between mission success and failure. In a medical environment, a failed encoder could endanger patients and staff by causing unpredictable motion of equipment such as a patient table or radiotherapy gantry, or by causing a pump to deliver improper flow of a fluid. And there are many other industries and applications that depend on fail-safe servo motion.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration regulates medical devices to ensure their safety and effectiveness, including recommending redundant measures to ensure correct and accurate operation of critical systems. Even when there’s no clearly defined regulatory framework, redundant feedback is a best practice to ensure absolute reliability of the servo system.

A traditional solution: Adding a second, external feedback device

To achieve redundancy, OEMs often add a secondary feedback device to validate the reliability of the main feedback device. Typically, this is achieved by specifying a servo motor that incorporates an encoder and pairing that with an external feedback device added somewhere along the driven shaft or load.

Both devices are wired to the servo drive, and the added device serves the purpose of verifying the direction of rotation and the approximate position being reported by the main device. If one feedback device indicates clockwise rotation while the other indicates counter clockwise, or if they differ significantly in speed or position, the drive knows a failure has occurred and can take appropriate action.

This dual-loop feedback results in extremely reliable motion — but at the expense of significantly greater complexity and cost. The design footprint must be enlarged to accommodate the redundant feedback device. Routing an additional set of feedback cables from a separate location can be challenging. And assembly of a more complex motion system can be difficult and time-consuming.

A better solution: Servo motors with integrated, redundant feedback devices

Kollmorgen offers an extensive range of standard product modifications that deliver highly specialized capabilities in products that can be rapidly prototyped, are highly manufacturable, and don’t require customers to assume the risks or cost of a custom product.

One of these standard modifications is the ability to build both an absolute encoder and a Hall effect sensor into the same motor without significantly altering the overall motor dimensions. With dual motor feedback loops integrated into the motor, you don’t have to find a place on the motor shaft or external load to add a second feedback device, and you can keep the dimensions of your application as compact as possible.

With redundant feedback devices integrated into the motor, Kollmorgen also offers a single cable that carries both the encoder and Hall effect sensor feedback signals to the drive. This saves the material and labor costs that would otherwise be required for routing two separate cables and allows you to further minimize the footprint of your machine design.

Plus, with a fully integrated solution, you gain confidence that the entire motion system benefits from the power, precision and reliability that only Kollmorgen can offer.

Our customers have already used this solution in modified AKM motors that drive critical systems in surgical robots, patient tables, medical pumps and more. What’s your application, and how critical is it to ensure fail-safe feedback for can’t-fail motion?

As a Gold Partner, Micromech are able to supply and provide expertise on Kollmorgen products. Need assistance with a new project? Contact our engineers.

The exoskeleton market is at a tipping point. With an aging population, increases in chronic disease and no end in sight for serious labour shortages, exoskeletons offer tremendous potential. In fact, market reports estimate that the exoskeleton market will grow at a compound annual growth rate of nearly 40% between now and 2028 — when it will reach $3.7 billion.

Engineers are currently hard at work to develop exoskeletons that help restore movement for those with motor impairments and even augment natural human performance. But the segment isn’t without its challenges. As wearable devices, exoskeletons must be comfortable, reliable and safe — a tall order given their extremely complex mechanics.

Engineers must consider three main criteria when designing exoskeletons for commercial viability: temperature, safety and mobility.

Keeping Operating Temperatures Low
Engineers know all too well that heat generated from motors can be an issue in temperature-sensitive applications. Unlike with traditional machine design, however, exoskeleton engineers don’t have the usual motor cooling options (fans, water, insulation, etc.) at their disposal due to size and weight constraints.

While typical motors operate at a maximum winding temperature of 155 degrees Celsius (over 300 degrees Fahrenheit), motors chosen for exoskeleton design must perform adequately at much lower temperatures, without the advantage of the aforementioned cooling systems. Unfortunately, exoskeleton engineers are often presented with frameless motor designs made for industrial robotics applications, which are running at temps that may exceed practical levels for exoskeleton equipment—given that it will come into close contact with a user’s body.

Engineers must instead find thermally efficient motors that operate at temperatures as low as 50-60 degrees C to minimize the impact of close-to-body contact. These low operating winding temps, however, may drastically impair the performance of typical frameless motors. Engineers should work with a partner that not only offers thermally efficient motors, but also motion design tools that can simulate motor performance levels at specified torque, speed and temperature levels. This will allow better planning for a range of application needs and motor sizing requirements.

Sizing for Safety & Mobility
One of the biggest hurdles to viable exoskeleton design is sizing. Not only must engineers account for the sizing differences inherent in the human population, but they must also keep their designs as slim, streamlined and lightweight as possible to allow for maximum comfort, safety and mobility.

Particularly in medical rehabilitation applications, engineers must account for the fact that a user may have little to no function in certain limbs. Here, lighter-weight designs are crucial to ensure safety in the case of falls or accidents.

Lighter-weight designs are also important for comfort, especially if OEMs hope to widen exoskeleton adoption, and for applications that require more sustained or regular use of the exoskeleton. For example, workers and patients using exoskeletons for rehabilitation or mobility will not be willing to endure excessive weight or uncomfortable pressure on the body. In addition to discomfort, designers must account for and reduce common risks to the wearer, including:

• Injury or discomfort caused from friction/direct contact between the exoskeleton and the user
• Joint hyperextension and overexertion
• Unintended contact, collision, and vibration exposure

Finally, streamlined, sleek designs are a must to allow the user to navigate tighter spaces and to reduce the risk of the exoskeleton snagging on nearby objects.

These strict size and weight considerations require frameless motors that are compact yet powerful enough to meet the needs of the given exoskeleton application.

Motors Designed for Exoskeletons
The majority of high-performance, frameless motors are designed for general automation or, at best, robotic joint applications — and therefore may not meet the more intensive demands of exoskeleton designers. Kollmorgen’s TBM2G motors, however, were made for the task.

They deliver consistent torque across the full range of speed — all in a more compact package. Engineers will enjoy high performance within the required temperature range, without having to oversize the motor. TBM2G motors were made to integrate easily with harmonic-drive-type mechanisms most commonly used in exoskeleton joints, with optional integrated Hall sensors that don’t increase motor length.

Finally, TBM2G motors come in seven diameters ranging from 50 mm to 115 mm and three stack lengths ranging from 8 mm to 26 mm — so exoskeleton OEMs can more easily scale to meet varying human sizes and application requirements.

Choosing the Right Partner
When it comes to exoskeleton engineering, selecting the right partner is as important as the design components themselves. As the exoskeleton market quickly develops, Kollmorgen can help engineers stay ahead of the curve.

Kollmorgen is the global leader in frameless, brushless motor design and manufacturing — with the motor selection, engineering guidance and service to support any exoskeleton application.

As a Gold Partner, Micromech are able to supply and provide expertise on Kollmorgen products. Contact our sales team for price and delivery or technical assistance.

Gone are the times when doctors carried all the medical tools with themselves in one bag. Nowadays, health care equipment is a mixture of the latest technology from the fields of physics, electronics, software, and mechanics. Modern scanning and imagining devices allow physicians to diagnose and to see inside of their patients in ways unimaginable just 50 years ago and a growing number of various mechatronic and robotic devices help to perform surgery and other medical treatments. All these marvellous health care devices must fulfil strict requirements from safety, but also the reliability point of view, with some types of machines, also requiring precision movement and positioning, without compromising the former. TwinSpin® gearboxes are used in various medical applications and in the following lines we would like to outline the benefits provided by our gear technology.

Robust design and overload capacity

As mentioned earlier, the safety of the patient and health care staff is one of the most important features of a medical device. Any potential risk of injury or accident must be prevented at any cost, therefore for this reason critical components on the rotating axis with close proximity to the human or which are moving patient, must be robust and designed for very high overload. Overload factor 6 times of nominal load and even more is required and tested.

TwinSpin® reduction gear withstands several thousand load peaks at 5x times of rated torque without loss of function or precision. To find the gearbox structural limit we tested G series reduction gear, size TS 115 ratio 43 with static torque overload. The Rated torque of the gearbox is 173 Nm and the emergency torque of 5x is 865 Nm. With the applied sensor we loaded the output shaft of the gear and checked for hysteresis curve discontinuity which occurred at 2 700 Nm of load torque. In the next step, we tested the main bearing with tilting moment overload. The maximum bending moment of TS 115 is 560 Nm, so as with torque overload we applied tilting moment overload. The loading went up to 3200 Nm of tilting moment when plastic deformation of bolts started to be visible and the test was interrupted.

The important observation from both overload tests was that the reduction gear did not disintegrate into separate parts and have kept the internal components together. That means, when a very high safety factor is required, instead of using oversized components which do not have high overload capacity, TwinSpin® reduction gear can be used.

Noise and vibrations

The next important parameter of the reduction gear used for medical applications is its smooth movement without high vibrations and low noise production. TwinSpin® high precision gearboxes are single-stage reduction gears and in standard, solid shaft version no additional pre-stage is used. In the hollow shaft version, either a spur gear pre-stage or a timing belt with pulley are used. To secure a smooth movement of the output, low torsional vibrations are desirable. Vibration amplitude depends on the size of the gearbox, the quality of machined components, but to some degree, it also depends on the type of the reduction principle. In general, TwinSpin® reduction gears have low torsional vibrations. In the picture below there is an example of torsional vibration measurement. Amplitude is evaluated in micrometers and with maximum input speed up to 1500 rpm. The picture shows the measurement of torsional vibration of hollow shaft gearbox size TS 115 GH, ratio 123.

Smooth and vibration-free movement is required in imagining and scanning devices where the resulting picture of scanned body parts must be sharp and focused.

High output torque in small diameter

In devices where design space is constrained (and the medical applications often are the case), high output torque

in a compact design envelope is appreciated. If we consider reducers up to a diameter of 120mm, SPINEA® offers a broad portfolio of solid and hollow shaft solutions. Big hollow diameter in combination with high rated torque values of GH series reduction gears provides a potential for compact and reliable medical machine solutions.

The lower ratio for low back-driving torque and high efficiency

In some applications where various parts of the machine need positioning with hand, lower ratios with low values of back-driving torque can be interesting. Of course, back-driving torque magnitude depends on more factors than is the ratio, but the ratio is the main one in the TwinSpin® gearbox. The next picture demonstrates the measurement of back-driving torque of size TS 125 GH with a ratio of 49. The Rated torque of TS 125 GH is 180 Nm and acceleration torque is 450 Nm. The gearbox is fully sealed.

Each medical application has different requirements put on motion equipment it uses. On the previous lines, we wanted to point out a few technical features of TwinSpin® reduction gears, which may be interesting for designers of medical equipment.

Gone are the times when doctors carried all the medical tools with themselves in one bag. Nowadays, health care equipment is a mixture of the latest technology from the fields of physics, electronics, software, and mechanics. Modern scanning and imagining devices allow physicians to diagnose and to see inside of their patients in ways unimaginable just 50 years ago and a growing number of various mechatronic and robotic devices help to perform surgery and other medical treatments. All these marvellous health care devices must fulfil strict requirements from safety, but also the reliability point of view, with some types of machines, also requiring precision movement and positioning, without compromising the former. TwinSpin® gearboxes are used in various medical applications and in the following lines we would like to outline the benefits provided by our gear technology.

Robust design and overload capacity

As mentioned earlier, the safety of the patient and health care staff is one of the most important features of a medical device. Any potential risk of injury or accident must be prevented at any cost, therefore for this reason critical components on the rotating axis with close proximity to the human or which are moving patient, must be robust and designed for very high overload. Overload factor 6 times of nominal load and even more is required and tested.

TwinSpin® reduction gear withstands several thousand load peaks at 5x times of rated torque without loss of function or precision. To find the gearbox structural limit we tested G series reduction gear, size TS 115 ratio 43 with static torque overload. The Rated torque of the gearbox is 173 Nm and the emergency torque of 5x is 865 Nm. With the applied sensor we loaded the output shaft of the gear and checked for hysteresis curve discontinuity which occurred at 2 700 Nm of load torque. In the next step, we tested the main bearing with tilting moment overload. The maximum bending moment of TS 115 is 560 Nm, so as with torque overload we applied tilting moment overload. The loading went up to 3200 Nm of tilting moment when plastic deformation of bolts started to be visible and the test was interrupted.

The important observation from both overload tests was that the reduction gear did not disintegrate into separate parts and have kept the internal components together. That means, when a very high safety factor is required, instead of using oversized components which do not have high overload capacity, TwinSpin® reduction gear can be used.

Noise and vibrations

The next important parameter of the reduction gear used for medical applications is its smooth movement without high vibrations and low noise production. TwinSpin® high precision gearboxes are single-stage reduction gears and in standard, solid shaft version no additional pre-stage is used. In the hollow shaft version, either a spur gear pre-stage or a timing belt with pulley are used. To secure a smooth movement of the output, low torsional vibrations are desirable. Vibration amplitude depends on the size of the gearbox, the quality of machined components, but to some degree, it also depends on the type of the reduction principle. In general, TwinSpin® reduction gears have low torsional vibrations. In the picture below there is an example of torsional vibration measurement. Amplitude is evaluated in micrometers and with maximum input speed up to 1500 rpm. The picture shows the measurement of torsional vibration of hollow shaft gearbox size TS 115 GH, ratio 123.

Smooth and vibration-free movement is required in imagining and scanning devices where the resulting picture of scanned body parts must be sharp and focused.

High output torque in small diameter

In devices where design space is constrained (and the medical applications often are the case), high output torque

in a compact design envelope is appreciated. If we consider reducers up to a diameter of 120mm, SPINEA® offers a broad portfolio of solid and hollow shaft solutions. Big hollow diameter in combination with high rated torque values of GH series reduction gears provides a potential for compact and reliable medical machine solutions.

The lower ratio for low back-driving torque and high efficiency

In some applications where various parts of the machine need positioning with hand, lower ratios with low values of back-driving torque can be interesting. Of course, back-driving torque magnitude depends on more factors than is the ratio, but the ratio is the main one in the TwinSpin® gearbox. The next picture demonstrates the measurement of back-driving torque of size TS 125 GH with a ratio of 49. The Rated torque of TS 125 GH is 180 Nm and acceleration torque is 450 Nm. The gearbox is fully sealed.

Each medical application has different requirements put on motion equipment it uses. On the previous lines, we wanted to point out a few technical features of TwinSpin® reduction gears, which may be interesting for designers of medical equipment.

Digital solutions have introduced significant changes in the manufacturing process of dental prostheses. Traditional techniques of manufacturing crowns, bridges, implants, or complete dentures have been replaced by CAD / CAM technologies. These technologies applied together with intraoral scanners and dental milling machines of small installation dimensions, enable the transfer of dental prostheses production from dental laboratories directly to dental offices. The process has become more simple, faster, and efficient. The patient can get a dental crown or bridge on the same day he comes to the dental office.

A scanner scans the teeth and creates a digital 3D impression. The CAD system processes it and, based on a comparison to the surrounding teeth, generates a proposal for a dental prosthesis, which can be then modified by a dentist or laboratory technician as needed. Subsequently, the CAD / CAM system sends instructions for the production of a dental prosthesis to a computer-controlled milling machine.

Dental prostheses made through CAD / CAM technologies have high durability and a natural appearance. They achieve high surface quality and fit well thanks to high precision scanning and production on modern dental milling machines (DMM).

The final quality of the dental prostheses and the efficiency of the production process significantly depend on the milling machine used, its construction, and components.

One of the key components influencing the basic features of dental milling machines are gearboxes in the rotary axes A and B used to position the table with the dental blank. The quality of the machined surface, the accuracy of production, thus whether the dental prosthesis will fit the patient well, but also the productivity of the machine and the time for which the machine can produce the dental prosthesis will depend on the type of gearbox used.

SPINEA® offers an ideal solution for DMM with TwinSpin® cycloidal gearboxes, which meet all requirements for positioning in the A and B axes and currently represent the best solution on the market in terms of accuracy, rigidity, torque capacity, and installation dimensions.

TwinSpin® gearboxes belong to the category of backlash-free gearboxes, which provide high positioning accuracy essential for the overall accuracy of dental prosthesis production. Thanks to the unique transmission mechanism, high production accuracy, and the use of high-quality lubricants, TwinSpin ® gears keep high positioning accuracy throughout their service life, thus ensuring the long-term quality and accuracy of DMM in which they are used.

Another very important feature of TwinSpin® gearboxes is high torsional and tilting rigidity, which are the key to the quality of the machined surface of dental prostheses. The high rigidity of SPINEA® gears enables higher machining speeds while maintaining excellent surface quality. Therefore, DMM with SPINEA® reduction gears achieves higher productivity and surface quality than machines with other gear mechanisms. High rigidity also allows for the processing of stronger and more durable materials of dental prostheses.

Minimization of machine dimensions represents one of the latest trends in DMM development. SPINEA® gearboxes have high torque density, i.e. the ratio of the rated torque to its dimensions [Nm / cm3]. Compared to, for example, harmonic gear mechanism, SPINEA® offers the gearboxes with more than double the parameter, which allows the machine to use significantly smaller size while maintaining power and thus minimize the machine dimensions, or use similar dimensions and thus increase the power of the drive unit. In addition, SPINEA®also offers DriveSpin® actuators, drive units that combine a servomotor and a precision TwinSpin® gear mechanism into a single compact unit of small dimensions, which simplifies the installation of the drive unit and allows an even higher degree of installation dimensions minimizing.

High overload capacity represents another great feature of TwinSpin®. It is expressed by emergency torque, which is five times the nominal torque value and is reflected in the machine’s high reliability and resistance to potential damage, for example, due to incorrect machine operation.

TwinSpin ® high-precision reduction gears meet all requirements of current trends in the development of DMM. They represent the most ideal solution for the gear mechanism of the rotary axis in 5 axes dental milling machines and successfully replace previously used harmonic and planetary gearboxes.

In rapidly evolving sectors such as semiconductor, biotechnology, precision assembly, and battery manufacturing, the trend towards smaller and faster equipment and systems necessitates that positioning stages evolve accordingly.

These stages must not only achieve higher operational speeds but also deliver the micron-level precision that these increasingly miniaturized applications demand, while maintaining a compact format.

Here are some of the advantages of the Akribis SGR rod motor module.

• Direct drive motors. These motors are characterized by a high torque constant that gives them higher accuracy and repeatability.
• Ironless construction. Without attraction between the motor and magnets, strokes are consistent and cog-free.
• Consistent force production. An air gap between the coil and magnet — such as in rod motors — reduces wear and ensures force consistency.
• Shaft motor design for high efficiency. Motors with a tubular design distribute magnetic flux evenly along the circumference of the stator for greater efficiency. The result: less heat generation and higher accuracy.
• Optical incremental encoder. Compared to other feedback technologies, contact-free optical incremental encoders provide optimal resolution and higher accuracy.
• Compact size. Space is typically at a premium in applications like semiconductor and biotechnology equipment.

These characteristics play a crucial role in achieving the micron positioning accuracy motion systems require in dynamic sectors.

The SGR Series by Akribis Systems is the perfect positioning module for rapid point-to-point positioning in high-speed, high-precision applications.

The unit features a coreless direct drive rod motor from the Akribis RDM-A Series, along with a linear guide rail and an integrated encoder.

With stroke lengths ranging from 70mm to 720mm and an encoder resolution of 0.2 µm, the SGR Series provides continuous force (Fcn) between 3.1 and 114.8N, and peak force (Fpk) from 9.3 to 344.5N, ensuring remarkable positional accuracy and repeatability.

Its applications extend to sectors such as glass and LCD panel manufacturing, medical devices, printing machinery, laser processing, and precision assembly.

For additional details regarding this or other Akribis products and possibilities, please reach out to Micromech, contact our sales team.