MAXIBOR – Polhem Prize

Claes Ericsson was awarded the Polhem Prize for the development and marketing of the MAXIBOR. Presented to him by Birgit Emgren, general director of the Swedish Agency for Economic and Regional Growth. The Polhem Prize (Polhemspriset) is a Swedish prize awarded by Swedish Association of Graduate Engineers (Sveriges Ingenjörer) (formerly Civilingenjörsförbundet and Svenska Teknologföreningen) for a high-level technological innovation or an ingenious solution to a technical problem. The innovation must be available and shown competitive on the open market. The prize is named after Christopher Polhem.

Initial MAXIBOR unit is used to align the British and French drives of the Channel Tunnel. The Senior Tunnel Surveyor, Eric Radcliffe, expresses his confidence in the accuracy of the MAXIBOR by saying, “as far as I know there is no other tool that can survey a hole like this to such a degree of accuracy”.

The world’s first non-magnetic survey tool released to the market

A short hole survey tool for use primarily with blast holes.

REFLEX and Chardec develop an orientation system for downhole orientation of wedges.

REFLEX and Chardec combine to further develop the Fotobor, working on similar principals but using a solid state image sensor and electronic image processing to replace the film and motorised camera mechanism.

Together with his wife Birgitta, Claes Ericsson formed the REFLEX Instrument Company.

Richard Parfitt starts Chardec Consultants Ltd, an electronics design company with particular focus on borehole electronics.

Claes Ericsson (Ortenblad’s son in law) worked with Industry AB REFLEX. Here he pioneered the non-magnetic instrument market around the world by developing the Fotobor borehole survey tool.