Design World’s Editor-in-Chief Rachael Pasini and Managing Editor Mike Santora presented the winners of the 2025 LEAP Awards on October 29, 2025 in an online broadcast. LEAP stands for Leadership in Engineering Achievement Program and the awards span four of the WTWH engineering brands: Design World, Fluid Power World, Engineering.com and EE World. The winners were chosen by an independent judging panel comprised of a cross-section of OEM design engineers and academic professionals.
Bodine Electric Company’s Entrant for the Contest
Bodine Electric submitted our new type 42B4BEBL-FX gearmotor for the judges’ consideration in the Mechanical category, one of eleven product categories in the contest. And we were honored when the judges selected our product for the bronze award in that category. It was a welcome present to cap off the year 2025, during which Bodine Electric Company celebrated our 120th birthday.
The Gearmotor of Automated Things
Bodine Electric applied lessons learned from past applications in warehouse robots to develop the new type 42B4BEBL-FX gearmotor, dubbed the “Gearmotor of Automated Things” (GOAT). Our design engineers started by creating the new type 42B brushless DC motor and integrated it with Bodine’s industry-standard FX gearbox. The 42B is a 24 volt 8-pole brushless DC motor with 120-degree commutation and rated for a continuous load of 210 oz-in. at 2400 rpm (1/2 HP). The 42B is nonventilated (TENV) and has an ingress protection rating of IP-66 for wet and dirty operating environments. It has popular Amphenol connectors for electrical connections, which make integration with servo controllers especially easy.
The standard design includes a 256 pulse/revolution magnetic encoder for positioning control, but many other options are available as a custom design. A temperature switch is embedded in the motor winding and terminated in the Amphenol connector. In IIoT applications, the switch alerts the system controller to potential problems or overloads. The controller can then initiate a controlled shut-down for maintenance. The FX gearbox, with hardened steel helical gears for high torque and long life, is available with gear ratios from 5:1 to 30:1. It also has an industry-standard mounting interface to facilitate an upgrade in an existing machine from a more basic type of gearmotor to this higher performance unit.
Thank You
Thank you to the judges who voted for our product. We also thank Design World for their support.