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Remote Control Electronic Speed Control

Other Parts Discussed in Thread: DRV8301

Th is question is about the hobby of remote control 1/8 scale car/buggies.  I would like to know if possible to make a ESC for one of these buggies.  I know you can buy one but what the fun in that.  I will be using lipo batteries of 7.4 & 11 volts.  Can anyone help in achieving this project?  where do i start?

  • Reynaldo,

    Some people can. For something as high current as you are looking for it takes quite a bit of expertise though.  For this sort of application it is typicaly extremely high current, maybe as much as 100A. This puts off a tremendous amount of heat, so you either need a very large PCB or you need to dissipate the heat in other ways. They usually seal the power electronics in a special thermal "goop" and then sink that to an aluminum frame.  The next challenge is then in curren sensing. Shunts for these currents get very expensive, so using 2-3 like we do with InstaSPIN-FOC becomes a turn off. Most of these high current applications in hobby use a single current sense for I-total, and they don't care so much about accuracy as they are just trying to do a current limiting.

    In most low voltage, very high current traction applciations (like a forklift, etc) there isn't as much cost pressure so they use in -phase current sensing (brands like LEM) and then FOC techniques are preferred.

    I would say for an amatuer, somewhere in the 40-60A range, like our DRV8301 EVM could be done. Beyond that will be really challenging.

     

    Then, you have the motors. If you are designing it for a certain motor, or range of motors, no problem.  But having a control system work with many different types of hobby motors may be tough. Some of them have such low inductance that they really aren't made to be controlled with closed loop current control and shunts.