May 18, 2014

Makeatronics Store Now Online

Up to this point all products I've put up for sale have been so only through the blog post that described them. This quickly got confusing and cumbersome as I've slowly finished more projects and released them for sale. Now I've built a simple store to host everything. Blog posts where things used to be for sale have been updated to point to the store.

Up to now I have only offered a few bare PCB's for sale. I am now offering the PCB's with loose components and fully assembled products. As time goes on I hope to also have mechanical items available (think 3D printer parts) plus who knows what else.

If you like the projects you see on this blog the best way to support is to make a purchase in the store. Funds received through sales have a direct impact on the time and money I can spend on new and exciting projects.

Without further adieu, follow this link to the store:
makeatronics.blogspot.com/p/store.html

May 4, 2014

BLDC Hall Effect Sensors

So I've had two posts now where I talk about adding hall effect sensors to a BLDC motor. I figure it's time to explain a bit more how the process works.

This method only works with an outrunner style motor (that is, the rotor spins around the outside of the stator) with the magnets exposed on the underside of the rotor, such as this:


BLDC Motor Control

As part of my 3D printer project, one of the big electronics hurdles to overcome was a motor controller for a BLDC (BrushLess Direct Current) motor. Searching for a cheap, off the shelf controllers that would interface easily with a microcontroller turned up fruitless, so I took the opportunity to design my own circuit. It was a major project in itself, and while there's still a few hardware tweaks to make I'm quite happy with how it has turned out.