THE TECH Gigavac’s line of EPIC-enabled products now includes GX Industrial Contactors, MX High Reliability Contactors, and Sensing Contactors - all manufactured in the company’s 40,000-square-foot factory and headquarters outside of Santa Barbara.
Driving out costs The exploding EV industry has been a clear boost to the company. Gigavac now supplies products for EVs of all shapes and sizes - from motorcycles and passenger cars to buses, trains and ships - and also to charging station manufacturers. Working with one its highestvolume customers - an EV builder that the company declined to name - Gigavac has developed the stripped-down PCB version of its contactors, which it says offers significant cost savings. “Generally, it is at least 25% cheaper at high volumes,” said Markus Beck, VP of Power Products. “For that reason, we’re now seeing a lot of customers starting to board-mount contactors in the larger-volume automotive space.” Contactors are bulky parts relative to most components mounted on PCBs, and they’re not cheap either - depending on current and voltage requirements, they can run more than $100 per part. While the individual part costs are lower for the PCB-mount version, Beck explains that the biggest savings are realized when you consider space and assembly saving. “From an ease-of-assembly point of view, it’s significantly simpler,” he says. “Instead of mounting the full switch somewhere and running busses or cables with connectors, this integrates into the BMS system or the high-voltage junction box of the vehicle.
“Then connections can be designed in many different ways, basically whatever type the customer wants, as long as it can carry the current. Some use the threaded connection in the contactor to sandwich to a board and buss, others insert pluggable contacts.” Gigavac now offers PCB-mounted versions of its MiniTACTOR, GV, GX, and MX series contactors.
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