“It’s Like Being a Chef”: Custom Magnetics Maker Stays Ahead of Industry Design Trends with AI

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This article is sponsored by Triad Magnetics, a company that has powered electronics in the consumer, commercial, and industrial markets with innovative magnetics technology for more than 75 years.

When purchasing magnetic components, there are thousands of off-the-shelf products available. But what if a client needs a specific requirement that requires a custom design? Going through multiple iterations of a prototype, with so many options, decisions, and calculations involved, can often make the design process feel overwhelming and time-consuming.

"I think about it as being kind of like a chef," says Lazaro Rodriguez, Triad Magnetics engineering manager. "You're trying to come up with a standard recipe, but there are all kinds of different ingredients available to make it. You may think of magnetics as just a wire and core, but there are so many different types. It's up to the design engineer to pick from the available materials and come up with the best solution for the customer. It's a kind of art."

Almost anything that uses electricity requires some type of magnetic transformer or inductor, explains Triad President Bill Dull. This goes for a variety of industries, including medical, food processing, communications, and avionics. "Each application has a different size, performance, environment, and safety requirements," Dull says. "And every manufacturer approaches their project differently to design something that's never been built before with infinite possibilities for solving a specific problem. We continually look for ways to help our engineers improve upon their ‘recipes’ and perfect the art of custom design."

Triad Magnetics specializes in transformers and inductors for the electronics industry, with services ranging from custom design and prototyping to testing. Recently, Triad partnered with Frenetic, a European-based company that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to optimize outdated engineering procedures. The goal is to get ahead of industry design trends by streamlining the initial path to a custom design.

Bill Dull (BD): We're always trying to balance cost, manufacturability, and efficiency. With magnetics, people can't simply use what's on the store shelf because they need new or modified existing products with materials that meet the application's requirements. But there's no textbook that tells you what to do, and there are no standardized materials. Most of what our engineers know they've learned through on-the-job training and years of experience.

Lazaro Rodriguez (LR): Our senior design engineers have in-depth discussions with customers to get a better understanding of what they need. From there, we will create a prototype to test our output. That initial attempt may still not be exactly what they need, but now we've created a benchmark, so it will be easier to make adjustments that get us closer to the final solution.

Historically, there hasn't been a simple program or infinite database where you can just plug in some numbers and it tells you, "Here's the optimal solution." It's always a lot of trial and error based on experience to get close to where you need to be before going through another iteration or two to perfectly achieve it. The efficiency of the design process depends on how close you get in that first pass.

BD: A year ago, we began using Frenetic's magnetics modeling software. Utilizing our design knowledge and expertise, we take customers' varied requirements and plug specific data into the software. It then comes up with a ballpark solution almost instantaneously.

For example, the software can figure out how much wire a bobbin will take and how many turns can fit on that bobbin, basing a design solution on all those different factors. The idea is to make engineering more efficient, as it's the most expensive part of magnetics design.

LR: What Frenetic allows us to do is to come up with the design and then make iterations of that design more quickly. Every time someone inputs information, Frenetic's AI platform is able to build more possibilities with different variations of wires, cores, insulation materials, and other parameters. You'll get better designs and calculations as you continue to use the software.

BD: Our competitors that don't use the software must do these calculations manually, whereas the Frenetic software provides us with all these factors. Not only can we design faster and more efficiently to client specifications, but we also have the people and machinery to stay competitive by creating smaller, more efficient units. We're preparing for the future: high-power, high-frequency applications operating at 500 kilohertz (kHz) or more.

BD: We had a customer who needed an LLC resonant transformer for electric vehicles (EVs). The Frenetic software is particularly adept at high-frequency LLC design, so by using it we could more efficiently meet the customer's needs.

LR: We did a prototype first, and then a revision of that initial prototype to match the customer's requirements for leakage inductance. LLC transformers help create inverter systems that EV charging systems are using now. Normally, those applications require more power than consumer and industrial-based electronics. The LLC topology allows for greater efficiency at these higher powers.

BD: In high-power applications like charging batteries, minimal inefficiency can still result in high power loss because the amount of power involved is substantial. The world is moving toward higher-power batteries, EVs, and alternative energy applications. That's where Frenetic is focusing its software modeling. Trying to make things smaller and more efficient requires operating at a higher frequency and as devices are moving in that direction, Triad Magnetics is moving in that direction too.

BD: Our legacy of off-the-shelf catalog products that operate in the 50- to 60-hertz standard power transformer range is what people know us for. They don't realize that the majority of our business is in custom design work in high-frequency magnetics.

In ferrite-based magnetics, there aren't generally many turns of wire around the bobbin. It's a very labor-intensive process because it's a few turns of heavy wire, some insulation, a smaller wire, maybe more insulation, and then tape to create spacing for safety. It takes a lot of skill, and it's challenging to automate high-frequency magnetics for high-power applications.

However, our factory equipment is well suited for this type of winding. Our CNC machines help with the process, maintaining consistent quality and speeding up production. We also have ferrite core gapping equipment, and we can put different gaps in them to change a part's inductance and performance. These machines allow us to standardize certain cores and materials and then make in-house adjustments as needed for different applications.

Image Credit: Triad Magnetics