Hi Ari,

You can ask here (and search also) or at the motor driver forum if it's about the DRV device.

BTW - the kit didn't originally ship with it, but if you install controlSUITE there is also a GUI and project for our sensorless InstaSPIN-BLDC solution. I recommend starting there just to prove you can spin the motor and all HW is set-up correctly, etc.

Hi Chris,

Thanks for the response, yeah I received a few project folders as well as two GUIs. The projects that were included with the Control Suite program were the following:

• BLDC_Sensored
• BLDC_Sensorless
• GUI_project
• InstaSPIN_BLDC
• InstaSPIN_BLDC_GUI_project
• PM_Sensorless

and the following two GUIs:

• DRV8312GUIv2
• InstaSPIN-BLDC_GUI_DRV83xx_v100

I have managed to use both GUIs to control the motor, Anaheim Automation (BLY172S-24V-4000), that was provided with the kit as well as our own motor,BG40 X 25 Dunkermotoren,  which our current project demands a new controller for. We were impressed with the sensorless algorithm employed in the InstaSPIN project but i do have a few questions regarding our specific application.

1. Am I correct in assuming the GUI_Project folder that comes with the control suite installation is for the DRV8312GUIv2 interface and the InstaSPIN_BLDC_GUI_project is for the InstaSPIN-BLDC_GUI_DRV83xx_v100 interface? I did test this idea as I had to modify motor parameters for our motor as it has 4 magnetic poles instead of the 8 magnetic poles with the provided anaheim automation motor.

2. Our new design must employ speed control within the following range: ~60 RPM to 4000 RPM. Using the sensorless algorithm within the InstaSPIN code I noticed at around 120 RPM we were getting fluctuation between 60 and 190 RPM by hooking our motor's optical encoder to an oscilloscope. We need much higher precision at this lower end and unless you have any suggestions i assume we would have to go with a sensored approach. Do any of the projects provided have support for speed control using 2 or 3 channel encoders rather then the Hall sensors as is done with the DRV8312GUIv2 GUI( with Motor Type set to Sensored BLDC)? We are just trying to get a quick sense of the performance of this microcontroller with our motor/encoder, it would be great if you could point me to a reference where this has been done or maybe a list of drivers/routines i could use to help accomplish this.

Thanks again,

Ari

1. Yes, your assumption is correct.  The GUI projects include the Crosshairs libraries and APIs as well as GUI variables that aren't used in the standard CCS projects.

2. Back-emf zero-cross / InstaSPIN-BLDC techniques all will suffer at lower speed when you have fewer zero crossing events happening per cycle.   You are pretty close to the limit.  I think you could probably work on the speed loop tuning and get pretty close to 60 RPM with your 4 pole motor, but you are very near the floor.  You need to look at sensored or much better sensorless angle observer techniques.  By 2 or 3 ch encoder, do you mean a high speed digital interface like Endat or Biss?  We don't have any examples of that.  We have done 1024+ line QEP and Resolvers only.

Although not my turn, but just to let you know that one of the build levels of the PM_Sensorless project is in fact sensored operation employing a 3 channel encoder. All you will have to do is add code to determine the calibrated angle (encoder counts between phase A and Index signal) and you will have sensored operation. This piece of code can be found in the PM_Sensored code in the HV kit.

Hi Chris,

Yeah I just mean something simple that counts pulses and determines a degree of rotation. The encoder is a simple, 500 pulse per revolution 2 channel optical incremental encoder. We do not need any position control just bi directional speed control. Before I am cleared to go ahead on any real work I was asked to demonstrate speed control down to about 60 rpm like i mentioned before. Could you point me to some example code for the work you guys mentioned doing. Thanks again.

-Ari

ahh, different terminology :)

The encoder we use for the small Anaheim / Telco motor is from Quantum Development

Part Number: HR12-2048-8-A-H-C-H-A

As mentioned, you can see the examples for this in the DRV8312 or DRV830x under PMSM for sensored or sensorless (used to tune the observer).

Thank you, I will take a look at the code for that project. Doesn't the PM_Sensorless project  include code optimized for PMSM motors though?

It's the same motor (the motor back emf is actually quite sinusoidal 

BLDC is block commutation

PMSM is sinewave / FOC