The dsPIC33CK Low Voltage Motor Control (LVMC) Development Board is a cost-effective rapid development platform for Brushless DC (BLDC), Permanent Magnet Synchronous Motor (PMSM) and Internal Permanent Magnet (IPM) motor control applications. The LVMC development board is ideal to explore and prototype motor control applications that operate from 12 to 48 Volts and up to 10 Amps of continuous current. The board can also support higher current, up to 20 Amps with an optional fan or heatsink. The board supports application development for sensored six-step trapezoidal or sinusoidal control with hall sensors, sensorless BEMF measuring phase voltages, or Field Oriented Control (FOC) with single, dual or triple-shunt resistor current sensing circuits. This flexibly in architecture allows you to evaluate various design techniques that suit your application requirements, balancing the cost and performance.
The LVMC board features the high-performance, single core dsPIC33CK256MP506 Digital Signal Controller (DSC) with 256KB Flash, 8-pairs of advanced motor control PWMs, three integrated 3.5 Msps ADCs for implementing math intensive motor control algorithms like sensorless FOC, Initial Position Detection (IPD), Field Weakening (FW), etc. The LVMC board comes with two mikroBUS™ headers to expand the board features to meet your application needs. It features a high-speed USB to UART interface for debug purpose and to monitor key parameters in your control algorithm using a graphical PC tool like X2C Scope or RTDM.
Benefits
Low-cost development board to prototype low-voltage motor control designs
A complete design serving as a reference to implement your motor control solution using the dsPIC33CK DSC and MIC4605 MOSFET gate drivers in a small form factor
Flexible development board to explore various BLDC/PMSM/IPM commutation techniques:
Supports trapezoidal 6-step control or FOC of BLDC/PMSM/IPM motors
Multiple feedback methods to support both sensored and sensorless operation: phase voltage feedback, Hall sensors, optical/magnetic encoders using the QEI, and operation using single, dual or triple low-side current sensing circuits
Signal conditioning circuit using either the on-chip op amps of the dsPIC33CK DSC, or the external op amps located on the LVMC board
PICKit-on-Board (PKoBv4) built into the board creates a standalone development tool, eliminating the need for an external programmer or debugger