Has anybody ever done a brushless motor controller ?

[Mathy]

Hello,

I would like to build my own AUV like the Mikrokopter's.
I'am interested in program with Flowcode the master control board and the brushless motor controller.

Anybody already done something like that ?

Thank you so much for your help

Mathy

[Benj]

Hello Mathy,

Yes is using brushless motors on my flying machine.

The ESC or electronic speed controllers I'm using take a servo input and you use the Flowcode v4 servo component to control the speed of the motor.

Enabling the servo channel with the position setting turned to 0 and then pausing for a few milliseconds will allow you to startup the motor and then control its speed.

Enabling the servo channel with the position above say 10% eg 128 will allow the ESC to go into configure mode to switch between different battery types etc.

My ESC's were around £8 on eBay but I have seen Brushless Motors and ESCs combined for around £10.

[Mathy]

Thank you benj for your answer

But I would rather make myself the controllers and thus program the sequence of brushless motors.

Do you think it's possible with little 18F MCU ?

I need 3 PWM output that's right ?

Have a nice day

[Benj]

Hello,

Seeing as the ECU's are low cost and they are also high current / voltage / power and they also protect your expensive Lipo batterys etc I would recommend using one of these from off the shelf.

Also to control brushless motors involve quite hands on coding unless you do it in a bit banged PWM method which will not work overly well. Some of the PIC chips come with analogue brushless motor driver hardware built in but again the coding for this peripheral combined with the external power mosfet circuitry involved means that an off the shelf device will in the end save you time and money. And maybe hair too

If you do want to proceed with making your own ECU then you should refer to Microchips application note on the subject.

http://www.microchip.com/stellent/idcpl ... m=en542235

Sorry to put you off, if you do decide to go ahead then let me know as I would like to hear on your progress.

[Mathy]

Don't be sorry. I have very little experience in programming and electronics in general.

I sometimes need somebody to put my feet on the ground !

If I decide to make the controllers myself, I will keep you in touch

[Sean]

Microchip have a brushless motor demonstration board that is supplied with a PIC18F2431. This device contains the necessary PWM hardware.

The code and board schematics are probably available from the Microchip website.