Reference design for high-performance brushless DC (BLDC) and PMSM motors, the small size and high power delivery of this motor controller make it suitable for use as a power tool.
Power tools are extremely important tools for both DIYers and professional fabricators. They simplify and expedite the process of drilling, cutting, buffing, etc. Microchip has released a reference design for a high-performance motor with high current delivering capacity to simplify designing power tools.
The reference design from Microchip is suitable for use as a motor driver for power tools. The main feature of this design is that it can be used for both the PMSM motor and BLDC motor of up to 800W. The reference design can allow engineers to design compact, cost-effective, high-efficiency, and higher-performance designs. The reference design features the dsPIC33CK high-performance Digital Signal Controller (DSC) in conjunction with the half-bridge MOSFET driver for control applications.
The motor driver can take input from 12V to 28V VBUS Input Voltage range (covers up to 6S battery setup) and offers a maximum power of 800W. It can provide a high current of 15A RMS (continuous) and up to 50A RMS (for short time) motor phase current. The reference design features a low-side shunt resistor on each inverter phase for current measurement (1 mΩ) and has a PWM switching frequency range of 12 kHz-50 kHz (typically 20 kHz). The design features six-N channel MOSFETs with low RDS(on) which enables smoother operations. The reference design can work with both sensored and sensorless motor design as it offers supports for sensored/sensorless motor control algorithms.
This reference design has been tested by Microchip. The company has also provided additional resources such as schematics, Gerber files, etc. You can find additional data about the reference design on the company’s website. To read more about this reference design click here.
