DC Brushless Motor controller?

[forgie]

I need a controller for a DC Brushless motor with hall sensors. Eventually I plan on making one using a pic, but for now I need the quickest solution possible. Does anyone know of any dedicated controller chips that would help me out? (that aren't motor control microcontrollers... I want to eliminate development time at the moment)

[forgie]

I'm afraid that I may be being lured over to 'the atmel side' of the force....

AVRs with 6 PWM channels are quite appealing for a 3-pole BLDC motor controller! Not to mention the very cheap hardware/software available for AVRs. And they're mostly in C, which suits me fine.

If it wasn't for the time and effort invested in PICs, I think I would've defected to AVRs long back. Then again, I've done jobs where I had to come in and work on a PIC based system. Maybe I'll continue to use both, since that will lead to better employment prospects.

Ah well, keep on enjoying PBP, and I'll see you back here when I need to return to the world of difficult programming algorithms and expensive compilers!

Just kidding, I think I'll miss the hardware 'robustness' of PICs, but I'm not really doing anything that requires it at the moment, more peripherals and CPU power is more important.

[Luciano]

....I'll see you back here when I need to return to the world of difficult programming algorithms.....

Probably not, you will replace us with a C expression!

The AVR architecture was designed from the ground up for
efficiency with C code.

Have fun and pick the right compiler!

Best regards,

Luciano

[forgie]

Welcome to the world of open-source, GCC can be used for the AVR, which means that you have a free C compiler that includes single floating-point and standard number representations etc. No more f$%&ing around with doing complex ineger math - I'd swear my head nearly exploded once or twice doing a particularly complicated two-variable function in integer math. In GCC it will all be, well, a distant memory.

Actually I'm not going to use an AVR straight off, I'm going to get an Allegro 3936 BLDC motor controller. But I am going to use AVRs whenever I can in the future...

[Luciano]

Hi Nick,

The STK500 is a "must have" for your new career!

Best regards,


Luciano

* * *

The Atmel AVR ® STK500 is a starter kit and development system for Atmel's AVR Flash microcontrollers. The STK500 gives designers a quick start to develop code on the AVR combined with features for using the starter kit to develop prototypes and test new designs. The STK500 interfaces with AVR Studio ® , Atmel's Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for code writing and debugging.

Expansion cards are available for the different AVR sub-families and larger devices.

2 pages flyer:
http://www.atmel.com/dyn/resources/p...ts/doc1939.pdf

[forgie]

Yep, I'll definitely grab me one of those when the time is right - unfortunately now is not that time! More work needs doing on an older, 18f452/PBP based project. Looks like I may hang around this forum for just a little bit longer....