section_path: Self-commutated motor/Brushed DC motor/Permanent magnet
section_name: Permanent magnet
paragraph_text: Permanent magnet
  
  A permanent magnet (PM) motor does not have a field winding on the stator frame, relying instead on PMs to provide the magnetic field. Compensating windings in series with the armature may be used on large motors to improve commutation under load. This field is fixed and cannot be adjusted for speed control. PM fields (stators) are convenient in miniature motors to eliminate the power consumption of the field winding. Most larger DC motors are of the "dynamo" type, which have stator windings. Historically, PMs could not be made to retain high flux if they were disassembled; field windings were more practical to obtain the needed flux. However, large PMs are costly, as well as dangerous and difficult to assemble; this favors wound fields for large machines.
  
  To minimize overall weight and size, miniature PM motors may use high energy magnets made with neodymium; most are neodymium-iron-boron alloy. With their higher flux density, electric machines with high-energy PMs are at least competitive with all optimally designed singly-fed synchronous and induction electric machines. Miniature motors resemble the structure in the illustration, except that they have at least three rotor poles (to ensure starting, regardless of rotor position) and their outer housing is a steel tube that magnetically links the exteriors of the curved field magnets.