{"id":81,"date":"2016-05-20T12:50:24","date_gmt":"2016-05-20T12:50:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/martinelectronics.co.uk\/wp\/?p=81"},"modified":"2016-05-20T12:50:24","modified_gmt":"2016-05-20T12:50:24","slug":"usining-brushless-motors-in-robots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/martinelectronics.co.uk\/wp\/?p=81","title":{"rendered":"Usining Brushless Motors in Robots"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_82\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-82\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/martinelectronics.co.uk\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/Brushless_Motor_Robot_Drive_System.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-82\" src=\"http:\/\/martinelectronics.co.uk\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/Brushless_Motor_Robot_Drive_System-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"Brushless motor used in robot chassis\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"http:\/\/martinelectronics.co.uk\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/Brushless_Motor_Robot_Drive_System-300x225.jpg 300w, http:\/\/martinelectronics.co.uk\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/Brushless_Motor_Robot_Drive_System.jpg 640w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-82\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Brushless motor used in robot chassis<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>If\u00a0you want\u00a0something spinning hard and fast, brushless is where it\u2019s at. Brushless motors offer much better power-to-weight ratios compared to\u00a0brushed DC motors, but some applications \u2013 like a large robot\u2019s drivetrain \u2013 are less\u00a0straightforward than others. One of the biggest issues is control. Inexpensive brushless\u00a0motors are promising, but as professor churlz puts it, \u201chobby motor control equipment is not well suited for the task. Usually created for model air planes, the controllers are lightly built, rated to an inch of the components\u2019 lives using unrealistic methods, and usually do not feature reversing or the ability to maintain torque at low speeds and near-stall conditions, which is where DC motors shine.\u201d Taking into account the inertia of a<strong> 243 lb robot <\/strong>is a factor as well \u2013 the controller and motor want to start moving immediately, but the heavy robot on the other side of it doesn&#8217;t. The answer was a mixture of hardware and firmware tweaking with a lot of testing.<\/p>\n<p>The build log is full of interesting things\u00a0including gearing and other mechanical details of the robot, but to get the gist of the brushless motor drive train journey there is the section on what led professor churlz to think about\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.etotheipiplusone.net\/?p=3985#2\" target=\"_blank\">whether brushless motors \u2013 varyingly successful in little bots \u2013 would scale up to a ~250lb robot<\/a>, details about his\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.etotheipiplusone.net\/?p=3985#5\" target=\"_blank\">testing and investigation of the motors and controllers<\/a> he chose, and finally a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.etotheipiplusone.net\/?p=3985#7\" target=\"_blank\">summary of his conclusions<\/a>. In the end he found it a qualified success.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.etotheipiplusone.net\/\">http:\/\/www.etotheipiplusone.net\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If\u00a0you want\u00a0something spinning hard and fast, brushless is where it\u2019s at. Brushless motors offer much better power-to-weight ratios compared to\u00a0brushed DC motors, but some applications \u2013 like a large robot\u2019s drivetrain \u2013 are less\u00a0straightforward than others. One of the biggest issues is control. Inexpensive brushless\u00a0motors are promising, but as professor churlz puts it, \u201chobby motor &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/martinelectronics.co.uk\/wp\/?p=81\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Usining Brushless Motors in Robots<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[22,33],"tags":[65,66,64],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/martinelectronics.co.uk\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/martinelectronics.co.uk\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/martinelectronics.co.uk\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/martinelectronics.co.uk\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/martinelectronics.co.uk\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=81"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/martinelectronics.co.uk\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":83,"href":"http:\/\/martinelectronics.co.uk\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81\/revisions\/83"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/martinelectronics.co.uk\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=81"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/martinelectronics.co.uk\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=81"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/martinelectronics.co.uk\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=81"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}