“The project described here is a pre-driver for brushless motors with a hall sensor. The board incorporates many features like current monitor, fault, speed control, direction control motor start/stop using tactile switches, various function LEDs, 6 PWM LEDs. By combining it with a hybrid IC or IPM module large size high voltage and high current motor can be driven. The project is compatible with the Microchip PICDEM MCLV motor development board, HEX firmware of the MCLV board can directly work with this board. This board is mainly targeted to control brushless DC (BLDC) motors in hall sensor operations. The board supports a free, ready-to-use MC-GUI (Motor Control – Graphical User Interface) from Microchip. Using the MC-GUI, the user can easily set and/or change motor parameters. This greatly helps the user in developing customized drive solutions. Temperature sensor chip U3 is optional so do not populate. The fault pin has to be high for normal operation, bring it to GND to disable the operations. This pin can be used as over current input from ITRIP pin or an over-current comparator of the IPM module. Overcurrent can be monitored using the IMO (RA0) pin of IC in the range 0 to 3V. PWM Frequency default 20Khz with example HEX code. Hex code is available as a download.
This flexible and low-cost board can be configured in different ways to use with Microchip’s specialized motor control microcontrollers. This low-cost board has the facility to use either the PIC18F2331/2431, this hardware can be used to drive AC motor, Brush DC motor, Brushless DC motor, and solenoid. Various inputs and outputs pins are available, microcontroller has dedicated 8 power module PWM, Motion feedback Optical encoder or hall sensors, ADC to connect with a potentiometer, current feed, voltage feedback, and FOC signals. Project is compatible with microchip PICDEM MCLV board, HEX firmware of MCLV board directly can work with this board. This board is mainly targeted to control brushless DC (BLDC) motors in hall sensor operations.”