Features

The firmware provides an Arduino compatible, or specifically the ATMEGA32u4 AVR micro controller, trapezoidal control of brushless DC (BLDC) motors using Hall Effect sensors. Most important it's all open-source.

Specific features are discussed below:

Motor Configuration

• Configurable motor poles (MOTOR_POLES).
• Configurable switching frequency for MOSFET gate signals (TIM4_FREQ).
• Adjustable dead time between switching actions (DEAD_TIME).
• Option to enable or disable internal pull-up resistors on hall sensor inputs (HALL_PULLUP_ENABLE).
• Motor emulation capability by generating hall effect sensor inputs (EMULATE_HALL).
• Configurable electrical rotational frequency for emulated motor (TIM3_FREQ).
• Threshold for determining when the motor is considered stopped (COMMUTATION_TICKS_STOPPED).
• Selectable turn-off mode (coast or brake) (TURN_OFF_MODE).

Drive Controls

• Slow ramp up or down when turning on the motor or changing the speed reference input. (Not when turning it off as this depends on the turn-off mode.)
• Set the direction of rotation of the motor using input buttons.
• Enable/disable the motor using input buttons.
• Easily set a duty cycle or speed based on choice of speed control.

Current Monitor

• Adjustable current gain factor (CURRENT_GAIN).
• Configuration of the resistance value of the current sense resistor (CURRENT_SENSE_RESISTOR).
• Threshold values for current warning and error conditions (CURRENT_WARNING_THRESHOLD, CURRENT_ERROR_THRESHOLD).
• Option to enable or disable action when the current error threshold is exceeded (CURRENT_FAULT_ENABLE).

Speed Control

• Selection between open-loop and closed-loop speed control (SPEED_CONTROL_METHOD).
• Adjustable parameters for PID controller in closed-loop control (PID_K_P, PID_K_I, PID_K_D_ENABLE, PID_K_D).
• Maximum speed for closed-loop control (SPEED_CONTROLLER_MAX_SPEED).
• Parameters for both speed control (SPEED_CONTROLLER_TIME_BASE, SPEED_CONTROLLER_MAX_DELTA).

SCPI Implementation

• Implementation of SCPI protocol for remote control and communication.
• Definable SCPI input buffer length, error queue size, and command strings.
• Implementation of SCPI commands for motor control, error handling, and system information.
• SCPI commands for measuring motor speed, current, direction, and gate voltage.
• Commands for querying motor enable state, direction, and configuration.

Error Handling and Reporting

• Flags to store motor state and error reporting (motorFlags, faultFlags).
• Fault LEDs to indicate faults.
• Detect if inverter board is attached or not.
• SCPI command for retrieving errors from the error queue ( SYSTem:ERRor[:NEXT]?).

Documentation and Support

• Complete documentation of project.
• Links to external SCPI parser library and support page.
• User manual for board level documentation.