BLDC driver v6

Powerful BRUSHLESS Motor Driver version 6 is a small brushless motor driver intended to drive motors up to 250W, a great fit for many robotics projects. Everything uses connectors for quick and easy wiring, and no soldering is required. The design is optimised for ultra low power dissipation, with less than 5W power dissipation when operating at 15A peak motor current (10.6A RMS). The current sensing circuitry uses RDS(on) based current sensing with temperature compensation for high efficiency. I2C and CAN bus is available for communication with the main microcontroller. Up to 1A at 3.3V or 5V (independantly selectable by software) can be sourced from the I2C and sensor ports, which can be used to power external circuitry. Two M2 screw holes (max screw head diameter 4mm) are available for mounting.

Input voltage: 7-25V (30V surge)

Continuous Output Current without heatsink: 15A (Peak), 10.6A (RMS)

More current can be drawn if a heatsink is added and/or active cooling is used, up to 30A.

Small size: L: 58mm, W: 26mm, T: 9mm.

Connectors: Power: XT30, Motor: MR30, CAN: GH-2P, I2C: GH-4P, DEBUG: SH-4P.

Maximum PWM frequency: 50KHz

Maximum Motor Speed: 160000 ERPM

Supported Encoders: Sin/Cos Encoder (can be implemented using linear hall sensors, or magnetic encoder chip such as AS5115)

Supported Motors:

• Robomaster M2006 P36
• Robomaster M3508 P19
• More motor and encoder combinations coming soon

PCB specs: 14 layer, 2oz copper on all layers, 2.0mm thickness, epoxy filled vias, min via hole 0.2mm, components on both sides.


Comparison with Powerful BRUSHLESS Motor Driver version 5

The new version has been redesigned for better ease of use, with the return of the screw holes for mounting using M2 screws. In addition, the PCB width has been reduced while slightly increasing the thickness. The PCB length has increased, but in reality, the space of the connectors takes up was neglected in the previous design. Once you account for the connectors, the new version takes up less space than the previous version due to the connectors being packed closer together.

The PCB surface area has been increased slightly by fully utilising the space under the connectors, and combined with the thicker 14 layer PCB, leads to noticeably improved thermal performance.

The current sensing accuracy should be improved as the DRV8353 should not have offset calibration issues seen in the DRV8323. Additionally, the current sensing circuit PCB layout has been redesigned for higher accuracy, and the thicker PCB leads to better thermal coupling, for more accurate temperature compensation of RDSon. The current sensing and gate drive performance at low input voltages has also been improved as the MOSFET gate voltage is regulated more accurately.

The idle power comsumption has also been significantly reduced by a new highly efficient power supply architecture providing 10V to the gate driver and 1.8V to the microcontroller. The full load efficiency is also slightly increased due to the thicker PCB having lower resistance, and better thermals leading to MOSFETs running cooler and more efficiently.

A new high current software switchable voltage output is available on the I2C and sensor ports, which can output either 3.3V 1A or 5V 1A. This lets you provide power to much larger devices such as a Raspberry Pi without using an external regulator, saving even more space in many robot designs which require more computational power. The 3.3V option is still available for powering microcontrollers such as ESP32, leading to more flexibility in use case. The outputs also feature reverse current blocking, which allows multiple outputs to be put in parallel safely, and is less likely than the previous version to suffer permanent damage in case of over load.