Hello. Could you please clarify whether or not Dual VNH5019 Motor Driver Shield for Arduino Pololu Dual VNH5019 Motor Driver Shield for Arduino can be used for two gimbal 12V DC 3-phase electromotors with encoders? Thank you.
Hello.
It sounds like you are referring to some 3-phase brushless DC (BLDC) motors; if that is the case, a typical dual H-bridge driver like the VNH5019 is not appropriate. You might consider our recently released A89301-based sensorless brushless motor controller; however, please note that since it is sensorless, it cannot use the encoders directly. If you post more details about your motors, such as a link to a product page or datasheet, I would be happy to take a closer look.
Brandon
Hello Brandon. We want to use two gimbal 12V DC 3-phase electromotors with encoders Gimbal Motor with Encoder - 12V, 467RPM - SparkFun Electronics To control the electromotors, we want to use A-Star 32U4 Mini SV controller board Pololu - A-Star 32U4 Mini SV if we will use two VNH5019 motor drivers Pololu - VNH5019 Motor Driver Carrier instead of the Dual VNH5019 motor driver shield for Arduino. After testing with the two electromotors, we will use the four electromotors. Our project is similar to this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ozgxPi_tl0 In the video, she uses four VNH5019 motor drivers connected to four electromotors with encoders! Thank you.
Please note that those gimbal motors are a fundamentally different type of motor than the ones used in that YouTube video. Those gimbal motors are 3-phase brushless motors (which the VNH5019 is not compatible with), while the ones in the YouTube video are simple brushed DC motors with encoders (more specifically, our 19:1 37D 12V gearmotors with encoders according to the video’s description).
You could probably drive each gimbal motor with a A89301-based controller that I mentioned in my previous post (e.g. one for each of those gimbal motors), but as I noted, it will not be able to use the motors’ integrated encoder. Alternatively, you might try checking with SparkFun to see what kind of driver they recommend.
Brandon
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Hello Brandon. As I think, the best microcontroller boards for gimbal motors with encoders are STM32 boards based on this article Microcontrollers | Arduino-FOC . I suppose to use STM32 NUCLEO-64 with STM32F401RE MCU https://www.st.com/en/evaluation-tools/nucleo-f401re.html .
Because we use the 24V battery, I will use Pololu 9V 5A Step-Down Voltage Regulator D42V55F9 Pololu - 9V, 5A Step-Down Voltage Regulator D42V55F9 to power the two gimbal 12V motors via two Sparkfun 3-Phase Brushless Motor Drivers (TMC6300) SparkFun Brushless Motor Driver - 3-Phase (TMC6300) - SparkFun Electronics .
Based on the specifications, the motor driver and the microcontroller board should work well with Arduino Simple Field Oriented Control library https://docs.simplefoc.com/
I would much appreciate any your comments.
At this point, the only Pololu product you are asking about is our step-down regulator, and I suspect powering one or two of those motors from a D42V55F9 regulator to generally work fine.
As far as the rest of the system, I do not have any specific recommendations or advice. Is there a particular reason you want to use brushless motors? As noted on the SparkFun TMC6300 driver’s product page that you linked to controlling 3-phase brushless motors is not trivial; you will need 6 PWM signals per motor, plus additional considerations for integrating the feedback signals.
Brandon
Hello Brandon. There is not a very particular reason to use brushless motors. For our project, we just need pancake-shaped electromotors with encoders. Pancake shape is significant for our project. We also need electromotors with good torque, not high torque though. The Sparkfun gimbal motors are good for us.
In the video that I provided to you, she explains how to make code (with PID control) to control electromotors.