Hello, I haven’t posted here in a very long time, I think I’m in the right forum. I have been looking for a solution to drive a proportional solenoid. Specific application is controlling a hydrostatic pump that comes with solenoids rated at 12v and current from 0 to 1.5 amps for full control range.
I have searched Sparkfun for several days and only thing I’m finding are stepper motor drivers, which maybe could work, if I could figure out how to use just one winding and modulate current. So instead of stepping I would want single coil holding operation but I don’t know how to find that.
Also, a simple brush type dc motor driver would work as long as it has current feedback as the impedance of the solenoid I’m driving does change with position of the plunger. But even that is some what overkill, just a simple fet driver with current feedback would work. I also checked into LED drivers as that is similar application, but the current ratings are all too low and I’m not sure how they would deal with the highly inductive load.
Searching the entire www for proportional solenoid driver was a bit of a mess, but I found a great example.
<LINK_TEXT text="Resource Library | Analog Devices … scription
">CN0415 Circuit Note | Analog Devices
</LINK_TEXT>
There is a Analog Devices part number that I can buy: EVAL-CN0415-ARDZ Shield
I’m not endorsing this and I hope it’s ok to reference it here. Actually if there is a similar product from Sparkfun I’d much rather buy that. Either way this shield is Arduino compatible and claims to be robust enough to handle vehicle environment.
Does anyone have suggestion for this application? Proportional solenoids are quite common means of controlling motion so I was thinking I’m not the first Sparkfun customer looking for something like this. Maybe everyone else made their own FET driver board with current feedback; that project is beyond my abilities.
Thank you.