Patent ID: 6906443

Claim:
A brushless DC motor having a step skewed rotor comprising a housing, a stator located within said housing, a step skewed rotor located with said housing and being rotatable about an axis of rotation within said stator, said step skewed rotor including a rotor shaft having a portion of which has a uniform cross sectional configuration taken in a direction substantially perpendicular to said axis of rotation, defined by N planar sides of substantially equal length and width where N is equal to the number of poles of the motor, a first and a second set of N number of substantially identically shaped magnets one of each set being attached to each of said N planar sides of said rotor shaft, each of said magnets having an exterior arcuate surface, said arcuate surface on said magnets of said first sets of magnets and said arcuate surface on said magnets of said second set of magnets each cooperating to form a cylindrical surface having a substantially circular cross sectional configuration taken approximately perpendicular to said axis of rotation, each of said N planar sides of said rotor shaft having one magnet of said first set and one magnet of said second set of magnets attached thereto with said one magnet of said first set being disposed contiguous to said one magnet of said second set on each of said N planar sides of said rotor shaft, each of said second set of N number of magnets being offset from each of said first set of N number of magnets to form a step skewed rotor.