Bi-directional Controller, Low current, Low Cost Model
Current Projects!
Model: Bi-directional Controller, Low current, Low Cost Model
Priority: Low-Medium
This unit is a work in progress. The power and PWM stages are mostly complete and will only require slight modificaions once the driver stage is figured out. The driver side is still undecided.
This model is designed to be low cost controller with basic features and operation. While the design is about 50% drawn out, there's still some things we havent decided upon yet.
We'd like to have both Potentiometer and Hall effect control, but at this point in time we havent decided on wether to use P & N channel Mosfets, or just use a driver and all N channel. Both are easily done, though the driver would add cost to the design, but the whole object of this model is to be low cost. At a later stage, we'll probably also have a mid range version of this controller.
We also havent decided if we will offer a case option for this or not. The costs of the cases we currently use have gone up by a fair margin, making it hard to justify at this point in time. However, people do like to put things into cases, so i will see what I can find.
As for features, it will be low cost (under $30), Bi-Directional, *may* employ braking. 12-24V DC, 20A
Below, you can see the proof of concept for this controller. That single chip (an ATMEL) holds all the code for the bi-directional control and at the moment it has working brakes! But I'm not sure if I'll leave that module in there as I'd rather use the spare pins for other things (after all, the micro only has 8 pins!)
The code at the moment will only accept a potentiometer, I didnt program the code for the hall effect yet. There's also not a lot of memory left, Im at about 60%
