User Manual

Brushless Motor Connections and Operation
110 Advanced Digital Motor Controller User Manual V2.1, December 3, 2020
Since encoders do not give an absolute position, a reference search sequence is per-
formed automatically by the controller at every power up or when the controller switches
from a different mode to sinusoidal mode with encoder feedback
The search can also be forced manually by pressing the Sensor Setup button on the Diag-
nostic tab of the PC utility, or by sending the following maintenance command from the
console or the serial/USB port
%CLMOD 2 (for channel 1) or
%CLMOD 3 (for channel 2).
Before trusting that reference search will be successful at every power up, try repeated-
ly to send the sensor tuning (%CLMOD) command under real-life load conditions. After
reference search is completed, verify that the motor turns with the same efficiency in the
forward and reverse direction.
Proper operation of the encoder can be verified by viewing the counter with the query:
?C [channel]
And verifying that it increments by the Encoder’s CPR (counts per revolution, or PPR *4)
when making a full turn, and returns to its original value after a full turn in the reverse di-
rection.
Hall-Only
In this mode, the Hall sensors are used to determine the angular position of the rotor.
Since transitions of the Hall pattern occur at every 60 degrees only, the controller will
estimate the current angle by interpolating in between two transition based on the cur-
rent motor speed. This technique works well as long as speed is stable and changes are
relatively slow. It also requires that the magnets and sensors are positioned with precision
inside the motor, which is not always the case in low cost motors. Compared to Trape-
zoidal mode, this mode will result is quieter motor operation because of the sinusoidal
commutation.
Proper operation of the Hall sensors can be verified by checking that the hall counter
changes by 6 * the number of poles over a full mechanical turn in the PC Utility or by us-
ing the query:
?CB [channel]
Alternatively, the following query can be run to view the state of the logic level of each
Hall inputs.
?HS [channel]
The Hall-only mode requires only a one time tuning during which their actual angular po-
sition of each Hall sensor will be detected and stored. See “Automatic Sensor Setup” on
page 1 0 7.