Mechatronics engineer and maker Andy Geppert has constructed a enterprise card that is additionally a fully-functional brushless motor, full with driver.
“Designed for studying, this digital enterprise card PCB will information your construct of a brushless motor and gives the chance to experiment with management algorithms,” Geppert explains of his creation. “Strive delta and wye winding configurations and experiment with rotor and magnet designs as a lot as you need. The circuit is illustrated with check factors on the entrance aspect, and the parts are all positioned on the again aspect.”
This working motor is an uncommon tackle the PCB-as-a-business-card idea. (📷: Andy Geppert)
Whereas the PCB Geppert has designed manages to meet the requirement of a enterprise card by together with his contact info, it is crammed into the bottom-right — making room for the extra necessary visible: a schematic of the circuit designed into the board which doubles as an illustrated information to its check factors.
Subsequent to the schematic is a cut-out with T-shaped protrusions: the coils, that are designed to be wound by hand. A rotor can then be put in within the middle of the cut-out — and, by way of the board’s built-in driver, be satisfied to show. Totally different winding configurations may be chosen by way of solder jumpers, and there is voltage feedback-based motor section place sensing utilizing the analog comparators on the board’s Microchip ATmega328PB microcontroller.
A motor with an uncovered rotor floating in the midst of a cut-out in a enterprise card-sized circuit board is not essentially the most sensible method of turning electrical energy into movement, however Geppert is hoping the gadget will show helpful for academic functions — although, on the time of writing, the design was nonetheless a work-in-progress.
Geppert has experimented with a 3D-printed prototype, and is at the moment mentioning the PCB. (📷: Andy Geppert)
“The rotor strikes just a little bit with guide voltage pulses,” Geppert explains, “however the small brushless motor driver I examined with cannot get the rotor to show. There may be a number of room for testing and optimization. Gaps, flux density, coil and magnet coils… assured studying of 1 sort or one other awaits me.”
The mission is being documented on Hackaday.io, whereas design information and supply code have been revealed to GitHub below an unspecified license.