History

1979
Start of research on Active Magnetic Bearings (AMB) at ETH Zurich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology) by Prof. Dr. Gerhard Schweitzer (Institute of Mechanics)

1988
Mecos is established as one of the first spin-off companies from ETH Zurich. Development of AMB systems for industrial milling spindles starts as a follow-up of an ETH research project.

Experience in a variety of applications such as turbomolecular pumps, centrifuges, textile spindles, flywheels, compressors, machine tools. MECOS also builds several test-rigs for universities and industry.

1989 - 1998
The company grows slowly but steadily. Components for magnetic bearings are developed such as processor boards, power amplifiers, sensors, integrated drive and last but not least firmware and software tools.

1998
The company moves to the new headquarters in Winterthur, Switzerland. High volume production is setup, customers with a system production of several hundreds per year can be established.

Today
On 1400m2, more than 30 highly motivated people design and produce magnetic bearings for industrial use. A worldwide customer base has enabled a continuous growth over the last decade.

How Everything Started...

"Similar to famous companies in the technology field MECOS has been started in the proverbial "garage". After spinning-off from ETH Zurich in 1988 we used my father's old painter shop to build the first prototypes. We gained experience in the industrial application of magnetic bearings and kicked-off its commercial utilization with the first customer projects."

Dr. Alfons Traxler