Welcome. The gorgeous object gracing this issue’s cover is a partially manufactured stator from an electric motor. There are two of these in your F-150 Lightning, one on each axle, although they don’t look like this in the finished state, since the striking copper crown of thorns is eventually coated with gray epoxy for insulation. This crown is formed by hairpin wires, which are first cut from a spool, bent into a U-shape, and stripped, then inserted into the stator core, bent to final position, trimmed, and laser welded. Much of this work is done in a single fascinatingly complex machine.
When ants drag a dead cricket back to their nest, each ant involved can be said to have contributed to the collective feat, even the ones that rode on the cricket or pulled in the wrong direction the entire time. They are all one team. In that generous sense, I can be said to have contributed to the development of a high volume manufacturing process for this part. We modified one of the machines in our shop to mimic the wire bending process, and used it to bend hairpins using different paths, speeds, bend tooling, etc. This project, codenamed “coat hanger job,” was directed by product design engineers, who brought straight wires and test plans to the shop, and whisked the bents wires away. They were looking for conditions that would crack the insulating enamel on the wire. I’m not sure how helpful any of it was, but it was honest work.
My electric car only has one motor, but basically no transmission, so when you accelerate you don’t waste time and energy spinning up a lot of extra mass or shifting gears. Coupled with the high torque of the motor, this means that I can pretty much blow any gas car off the line at a stoplight. My dad, who always bought cars with big V8 engines to do exactly that, would have loved driving my Bolt. Another key feature of electric cars is that they play music at low speeds, to warn pedestrians they’re coming in the absence of engine noise. Mine doesn’t exactly play a rocking tune — it’s more like the moaning that comes out of the monolith in 2001: A Space Odyssey — but still. If I could customize it, I would make it play “Cretin Hop” like my cell phone.
I don’t say much about the poems in the journal in these Editor’s Notes, but I don’t think anyone is clamoring for my commentary, and in any case there’s not much to explain. The poems all speak quite clearly for themselves, so all I can add is that they’re the ones I liked best out of the large number submitted, for reasons which should be obvious when you read them. The submission period for Pulsebeat 07, which will be posted in January 2024, begins October 1. Until January, enjoy the wonderful poems in this issue.
Pulsebeat Poetry Journal 