Motocontroller board to control two Sparkfun 3-Phase Brushless DC motors?

Robotics
1

Hello,

I bought two Sparkfun 3-Phase DC Brushless electromotors with encoder AS5048A Gimbal Motor with Encoder - 12V, 467RPM - SparkFun Electronics . I also bought two Sparkfun 3-Phase Brushless motor-drivers SparkFun Brushless Motor Driver - 3-Phase (TMC6300) - SparkFun Electronics . Could somebody please tell whether or not Sparkfun sells a microcontroller board to control the two electromotors with these motor-drivers? If it doesn’t, please advise one? I am struggling to find an appropriate microcontroller board. My first choice microcontroller board appeared to be wrong. Thank you.

2

Hookup guide has a recommended microcontroller, you might start with that.

3

Thank you so much. It seems that the recommended microcontroller board can control just one 3-Phase BLDC electromotor with the encoder. It cannot control two 3-Phase BLDC motors with the encoders. Do I mistake?

4

Why makes you think that? Have you tried the 3PWM option?

Why is it so important that one board control two motors?

5

Hello jremington. Each SparkFun 3-Phase BLDC motor with the encoder must be connected to the SparkFun 3-Phase Brushless motor-driver. The motor-driver has 6 PWM pins. The recommended SparkFun RedBoard Plus has just 6 PWM pins SparkFun RedBoard Plus - SparkFun Electronics . To control the two motors, the SparkFun RedBoard Plus must have 12 PWM pins. To sum up, the SparkFun RedBoard Plus cannot control the two SparkFun 3-Phase BLDC motors. Thank you.

6

Again, have you tried the 3PWM mode?

If you determined it to be unusable, please explain.

7

Hey jremington. I express my opinion and ask questions here. I hope a SparkFun employee will clarify the situation. I think the following. The Sparkfun motor-driver has 6 PWM inputs and 3 outputs. The 6 inputs are connected to the SparkFun RedBoard Plus board. The 3 outputs are connected to the SparkFun 3-Phase BLDC motor. Therefore, the SparkFun RedBoard Plus must have 12 PWM pins to control the two motors. Do I mistake? Thank you.

8

They are suggesting using 2 MCUs to drive the 2 motors, this is usually easier because it can prevent timing/blocking issues

If you need both controlled by one board, the Artemis ATP (12 PWM) and Mega2560 (15 PWM) are two that immediately come to mind

9

Thank you, TS-Russell. I have ordered the microcontroller board SparkFun RedBoard Artemis ATP - SparkFun Electronics to control the two gimbal Sparkfun 3-Phase BLDC motors (mentioned above) via the two 3-Phase Brushless motor-drivers SparkFun Brushless Motor Driver - 3-Phase (TMC6300) - SparkFun Electronics . Could you please recommend a SparkFun step-down voltage regulator to power the two motor-drivers from a Lithium 24V battery? Thank you.