DRV8301 Motor Drive & LaunchPad 2000 for motor with Hall Sensors

Blair,

BOOSTXL-DRV8301 is just the three phase inverter, so if your motor is 6-24V and less than 10A continuous / 14A peak, it could be appropriate.

The LAUNCHXL-F28027F does NOT include a hall sensor interface connector, though we usually just use GPIO when connecting to Halls, so you could wire something up pretty easy on the HW side. 

However, on the SW side we don't have anything ready to go in the MotorWare / InstaSPIN-FOC solutions that have been released publicly.  We did do an "internal" release (that I posted to this forum) which uses the hall sensor and then estimates an angle, still doing FOC control.  This runs on the DRV8312-69M-KIT, which support 15-50V and up to 3.5A.  

We support Hall BLDC / Trapezoidal control on the DRV8312-C2-KIT through controlSUITE, and I have  posted here to the forum the same that runs on the DRV8301-HC-C2-KIT through controlSUITE style code.

Let's start with your motors though. What are they rated for voltage / current?

Is this just a velocity application? 

Do you need FOC/Sinewave or BLDC/Trapezoidal control?

Are there start-up requirements that make you believe you need hall sensors?  (sounds like it may be a traction application?)

Chris,

This 3 minute video shows our application.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qM-dYfHgI1k&list=UUaWskIswan1K1mGGMcYUZZQ

In summary, this vehicle has two rear 36V hub motors, each with a current ranging from 3-20 amps.  This prototype currently uses an Arduino that drives two off -the-shelf BLDC motor controllers.  These motors currently run with halls but it may be feasible to go sensorless.  This vehicle electronically shifts from forward to reverse.

The near term objective is to develop a single box that houses two BLDC motor controllers and the micro that manages them.  I was thinking the F28027F would be an integral part of this.  We would build about 20 cars with this configuration.  If successful we would hire some one to design a custom production motor control system as I am a mechanical engineer with limited embedded experience.   

Between 0 and 2 mph (while accelerating) our motors run rough with the current configuration.  They feel like they are pulsing.  I do not know if moving to a vector drive would be reduce this.  I assume the current controllers are trapezoidal.  Do you feel sensorless appropriate for this application?

A first good step would be for me to configure electronics that I could drive one then two of these motors on a bench test at 24V and less than 10A.  Once I had that down, I could step up to a larger power module and 36V and 20A.  What hardware would you propose for initial bench testing.  I have CCS but have been using a different IDE for development on the Arduino.  

Your input is appreciated.

Blair

Blair,

At this point I would NOT recommend trying to do this purely sensorlessly (with just an observer like FAST, SMO, etc.).  In these types of applications the start-up will not be smooth enough, ESPECIALLY when you are trying to synchronize two wheels. You can search this forum for discussions on IPD (initial position detection) which is something we are working on, but it's not ready yet.

A good interim step would be to use Hall sensors for initial start-up, then switching to InstaSPIN-FOC, but unfortunately we don't have an example project for you that does this. In fact, there is nothing in MotorWare (software for InstaSPIN-FOC) that uses Hall sensor feedback at all.  A couple people on this forum have added this themselves.

In general the DRV8301-69M-KIT is the best fit for what you are trying to do from a power perspective. Many e-Scooter customers are using this board for their development today.

Also, the F2806x device will be able to support two motors on a single chip. It gets tight on the ADC channels though, and once again we haven't released a SW example that shows how to do this yet....it's on the to do list for '15 with some new hardware (a 69M LaunchPad that can have two BOOSTXL-DRV8301 plug in).