Can motor shield drive brushless DC motors?
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- peridot
- Posts: 5
- Joined: Sat Jun 30, 2012 4:18 pm
Can motor shield drive brushless DC motors?
The difference between a brushless DC motor and a stepper motor has never been very clear to me; it seems like they're each a set of windings around a ring of magnets. The physical design is presumably somewhat different, but it makes me wonder: can the motor shield be used to drive a brushless DC motor? For example, I have a number salvaged from dead hard drives that have four wires, one common wire and one at the other end of each of three windings ("wye configuration").
- adafruit_support_bill
- Posts: 88090
- Joined: Sat Feb 07, 2009 10:11 am
Re: Can motor shield drive brushless DC motors?
Driving a brushless motor is similar to driving a stepper. Most have hall-effect sensors for feedback on rotational position/speed. Not sure what feedback (if any) is used in hard-drive motors.
A while back, someone posted that he had success doing this. But I don't recall the details.
A while back, someone posted that he had success doing this. But I don't recall the details.
- peridot
- Posts: 5
- Joined: Sat Jun 30, 2012 4:18 pm
Re: Can motor shield drive brushless DC motors?
Among the ones I've opened, hard drive motors have no sensors (back EMF sensing? dead-reckoning? feedback via the read head?), but CD-ROM and floppy drive main motors do have Hall effect sensors. I was thinking of the simplest case, just commanding a speed and trusting the motor to catch up. I'll look through the archives, thanks.
For posterity, as it were: http://forums.adafruit.com/viewtopic.ph ... 83&p=67065
For posterity, as it were: http://forums.adafruit.com/viewtopic.ph ... 83&p=67065
- adafruit_support_mike
- Posts: 67446
- Joined: Thu Feb 11, 2010 2:51 pm
Re: Can motor shield drive brushless DC motors?
Technically, steppers are a sub-category of brushless motors. The only difference I've seen is that 'stepper' usually means the coils are outside the rotor, and 'brushless' means the coils are inside the rotor.peridot wrote:The difference between a brushless DC motor and a stepper motor has never been very clear to me; it seems like they're each a set of windings around a ring of magnets.
Steppers also tend to be 'reluctance motors', which have a rotor that looks like a gear. When a coil has current flowing through it, it pulls the nearest tooth closer. Brushless DC motors tend to use a magnetic strip for the rotor.
The control process should be pretty much the same though.
- armohseni
- Posts: 1
- Joined: Thu Oct 06, 2016 9:05 am
Re: Can motor shield drive brushless DC motors?
HI
i have one question
i have many old VHS video BLDC.
how i can drive them with the v3 of the shield?
thank from advanced
i have one question
i have many old VHS video BLDC.
how i can drive them with the v3 of the shield?
thank from advanced
- adafruit_support_bill
- Posts: 88090
- Joined: Sat Feb 07, 2009 10:11 am
Re: Can motor shield drive brushless DC motors?
We have not attempted that here and do not have any information on how to do it.
Please be positive and constructive with your questions and comments.