Hello all,
I am a design engineer and just starting a new project. I have done some research and it seems that what I am trying to do is quite possible, but probably not the most common.
I am working on replacing an existing brushed motor / controller with a brushless design with similar specifications. The only tricky part is that the motor has a strange form factor which does not allow motor coils to be placed all the way around the rotor. So the motor will look something like the picture below. I have seen this called a single phase AC motor, and I have also see some call it a single phase brushless motor. I know that these motors can have difficulty starting or being able to change direction. For this project however I do not need the motor to run both directions, just consistently run the same direction. Think of a fan type application.
I am currently working on building the prototype but was looking into controllers. I need to set the speed of the motor and have breaking functionality.
Motor Specification are:
12v supply power
30-35 amps
1200 -1500 rpm
approximately 2 Nm torque.
I have found this great reference article on TI's site - Drive a Single Phase Brushless DC (BLDC) with a Brushed Motor Driver Reference Design
Seems to show me that this is no a fools errand. I was thinking about getting one of those evaluation boards and giving it a shot. But I thought I would post here and see if anyone might have a suggestion for a better option.
Any comments or suggestions are appreciated.
Josh