Motor Drive & Control Blog

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The Most AWESOME Motors in the Whole World!

Posted over 1 year ago

by Dave (Wisconsin) Wilson
- 0 Comments
Dave Wilson, Motion Products Evangelist, Texas Instruments Next to the wheel, the electric motor is arguably the most significant object ever invented by man. Just try to find any other invention that affects our lives as much as the electric motor...
So, Which PWM Technique is Best? (part 4)

Posted over 1 year ago

by Dave (Wisconsin) Wilson
- 0 Comments
Dave Wilson, Motion Products Evangelist, Texas Instruments So, which PWM technique is best for your motor control application? Up to now we have investigated three different PWM techniques. Some could regenerate energy back into the DC power supply...
So, Which PWM Technique is Best? (part 5)

Posted over 1 year ago

by Dave (Wisconsin) Wilson
- 2 Comments
Dave Wilson, Motion Products Evangelist, Texas Instruments So, which PWM technique is best for your motor control application? By now you have probably surmised that there is no “one” PWM technique that is the best for all applications...
So, Which PWM Technique is Best (part 6)

Posted over 1 year ago

by Dave (Wisconsin) Wilson
- 0 Comments
Dave Wilson, Motion Products Evangelist, Texas Instruments So, which PWM technique is best for your motor control application? Hopefully by now you have seen just how versatile the PWM process can be, and how subtle changes in this process can have...
So, Which PWM Technique is Best (part 7)

Posted over 1 year ago

by Dave (Wisconsin) Wilson
- 0 Comments
Dave Wilson, Motion Products Evangelist, Texas Instruments So, which PWM technique is best for your motor control application? There are certainly plenty of options to choose from, with each one exhibiting unique advantages as well as disadvantages...
The Ten Commandments of Digital Control (part 1)

Posted over 1 year ago

by Dave (Wisconsin) Wilson
- 1 Comments
Dave Wilson, Motion Products Evangelist, Texas Instruments Despite the fact that I now work for the Microcontroller Division of Texas Instruments; deep down, I still consider myself to be an analog engineer. I must confess that I didn’t always...
So, Which PWM Technique is Best? (part 2)

Posted over 1 year ago

by Dave (Wisconsin) Wilson
- 0 Comments
Dave Wilson, Motion Products Evangelist, Texas Instruments So, which PWM technique is best for your motor control application? In the previous blog, we examined the single-quadrant PWM technique, which is a good fit for extremely cost sensitive...
Controlling BLDC Motors: Simple is Usually Better

Posted 8 months ago

by Dave (Wisconsin) Wilson
- 0 Comments
Dave Wilson, Motion Products Evangelist, Texas Instruments I hate tax season! I not only hate the fact that I have to pay the taxes, but also that I must document the process. I’ve noticed over the years that my taxes have become increasingly...
So, Which PWM Technique is Best? (part 3)

Posted over 1 year ago

by Dave (Wisconsin) Wilson
- 0 Comments
Dave Wilson, Motion Products Evangelist, Texas Instruments So, which PWM technique is best for your motor control application? So far we have studied two motor drive topologies that result in unipolar PWM voltage waveforms on the motor, but are...
Microstepping Resolution vs. Microstepping Accuracy…Clearing Up the Confusion

Posted over 1 year ago

by Jose Quinones
- 0 Comments
Jose Quinones, (Analog Motor Drives - Applications Engineer) My favorite motor has always been the stepper motor. It does not matter if it is bipolar or unipolar. It does not matter if it is permanent magnet, variable reluctance or hybrid. Either way...
So, Which PWM Technique is Best? (Part 1)

Posted over 1 year ago

by Dave (Wisconsin) Wilson
- 0 Comments
Dave Wilson, Motion Products Evangelist, Texas Instruments So, which PWM technique is best for your motor control application? In case you haven’t guessed, this is somewhat of a trick question. It’s kind of like asking “which ice...
The 5.2V Stepper Motor and 50V Stepper Driver Paradox

Posted over 1 year ago

by Jose Quinones
- 0 Comments
I find it funny that a lot of stepper motors out there are still rated in voltage and that their voltage ratings are frequently low. This can cause confusion for some of our customers wanting to drive a 3V, 5.2V or 6V stepper motor with one of our 40V...
The Ten Commandments of Digital Control (Part 2)

Posted over 1 year ago

by Dave (Wisconsin) Wilson
- 0 Comments
Dave Wilson, Motion Products Evangelist, Texas Instruments This week, we are counting down to the number one commandment of digital control. Yesterday I discussed more generic issues related to simulation and code generation. But today I want to...
The Ten Commandments of Digital Control (Part 5)

Posted over 1 year ago

by Dave (Wisconsin) Wilson
- 0 Comments
Dave Wilson, Motion Products Evangelist, Texas Instruments For those of you just joining our discussion, we have been counting down the “Ten Commandments of Digital Control” all this week, leading up to the number one commandment today...
The Ten Commandments of Digital Control (Part 3)

Posted over 1 year ago

by Dave (Wisconsin) Wilson
- 0 Comments
Dave Wilson, Motion Products Evangelist, Texas Instruments We are now halfway through our countdown of the “Ten Commandments of Digital Control”. Yesterday we discussed the Analog-to-Digital Converter, and more specifically, the timing...
The Ten Commandments of Digital Control (Part 4)

Posted over 1 year ago

by Dave (Wisconsin) Wilson
- 0 Comments
Dave Wilson, Motion Products Evangelist, Texas Instruments This week we are counting down the Ten Commandments of Digital Control, and we are only one day away from the NUMBER ONE Commandment. Before discussing today’s Commandments, Let’s...
Adding a C to the CLA

Posted over 1 year ago

by ChrisClearman
- 0 Comments
All motor control designers want to deliver the best possible motor control solution quickly. Part of this depends on the gauged difficulty of design. If you’ve investigated TI microcontrollers for your motor control designs, you may have run across...
Social media: Moving engineering forward

Posted 10 months ago

by Jose Quinones
- 0 Comments
I think I was about seven years old when my Mother told me, “Humans are a social species. We need each other to survive!” I didn’t think much of it at the time, but I’m pretty sure she noticed I was having more fun deciphering...
Power Electronics Hardware in the Loop

Posted 8 months ago

by ChrisClearman
- 2 Comments
The future (and present for many cutting edge users) of power electronics control – and something we at TI are helping to promote – is the expansion of model based development, i.e. simulation and automatic code generation tools. You may already...
Get the Fundamentals

Posted over 1 year ago

by Dave (Wisconsin) Wilson
- 0 Comments
David Wilson, Motion Products Evangelist, Texas Instruments As an aspiring engineer in the late '70s, I once asked a senior mentor to tell me the secret of his great success as an engineer. After a brief moment of introspection, he simply replied,...
Teaching Your PI Controller to Behave (Part I)

Posted 2 months ago

by Dave (Wisconsin) Wilson
- 0 Comments
Dave Wilson, Motion Products Evangelist, Texas Instruments Richard Poley manages the training activities for our C2000 microcontrollers (MCUs), and co-teaches the TI Industrial Control Seminar series with me. (If you have never attended one of Richard’s...
SR Motors...Sinking Relevance or Suddenly Respectable?

Posted over 1 year ago

by Dave (Wisconsin) Wilson
- 1 Comments
Dave Wilson, Motion Products Evangelist, Texas Instruments So what's going on with the Switched Reluctance motor? Everywhere I go, I see engineers huddled together in dark corners at parties or sporting events, speaking in hushed whispers, asking this...
Using Ice-Cream Cones to make Sine Waves

Posted over 1 year ago

by Dave (Wisconsin) Wilson
- 0 Comments
Dave Wilson, Motion Products Evangelist, Texas Instruments I'm writing this blog the day after a very satisfying Thanksgiving holiday, and I still have food on my mind. So what does food have to do with motor control? Well, let me show you how to make...
Electric Power Steering Turns the Corner

Posted over 1 year ago

by Dave (Wisconsin) Wilson
- 0 Comments
Dave Wilson, Motion Products Evangelist, Texas Instruments Did you know that your hydraulic steering system wastes more energy than any other system in your car and is third highest in total vehicular energy losses (right behind wind resistance...
In the Event of an Actual Emergency...

Posted over 1 year ago

by Dave (Wisconsin) Wilson
- 0 Comments
Dave Wilson, Motion Products Evangelist, Texas Instruments Earlier this week, the federal government flexed its muscles and assumed control of all of the broadcast media in the United States. It was the most expansive test ever of the Federal Emergency...