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bennelson 04-16-2011 10:49 AM

Just built my first MOTOR CONTROLLER!
 
Hey everyone!

For a long while now I have been hearing about how motor controllers work, but most of it has been over my head.

I'm currently (oh my, the puns...) er right now, I am in a non-credit electronics class. The night before last, I went to the Makerspace and started work on a really simple DC motor controller, to be used as an LED dimmer.

So here it is:
http://300mpg.org/wp-content/uploads...r_DSC_7915.jpg

Yep, that's a motor controller!
12V, 200mA., and not much to look at, but it does work!

Read more at my blog entry:
First DIY Motor Controller

TomEV 04-16-2011 11:24 AM

Congrats on making the controller! What's the next step in making it handle more amps?

bennelson 04-16-2011 01:43 PM

The final intent of this project is to make an LED dimmer that can handle 6 watts.

It just so happens that a motor controller design will work just fine for the project.

The next step would be to have the output drive a transistor instead of an LED.

The transistor will handle the higher power and do the actual switching.

If I were building a full-scale EV motor controller from scratch, I would just go with the Open Revolt design.

This little project is as much to learn about electronics as anything.

Daox 04-17-2011 08:31 AM

Wooo, pretty cool Ben. I've been tinkering with a few things myself. Electronics are a lot of fun for nerdy guys like us! There is so much cool stuff you can do!

MPaulHolmes 04-17-2011 05:13 PM

Awesome Ben! Is that a 555 timer?

bennelson 04-17-2011 09:31 PM

Yeah, that's a 555 timer.
I had never used one before. When I started talking with the local guys about rigging up some sort of really basic PWM controller, I thought I might need some sort of micro-controller and everyone was like "Nah, just use one of these."

I followed THIS TUTORIAL. except that I replaced the mosphet with a resistor and LED.

I'm still new to all this and most of it is still a foreign language.

It was pretty exciting to hook everything together and make it work though!

This coming Thursday night, I plan on making it control a small motor and a larger array of LEDs. Then I can make a real circuit board and enclosure for it.

This is by no means anything close to an Open ReVolt controller, but I am actually learning things by doing this!

bennelson 04-22-2011 12:07 AM

Made it light up an array of LEDs with a MOSFET and also run a small DC motor.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDe63yr1GDg

bennelson 04-23-2011 09:00 AM

I just got the setup to dim a large white LED array (under cabinet light) yesterday.

That light is 1.8 watts. I think the MOSFET is rated for 50 watts.

bennelson 04-24-2011 05:02 PM

PWM is basically a square wave - put it through a speaker and you get noise!

I did play a little bit with an audio speaker, varying the pitch. There was another guy there when I was working on it who makes weird electronic musical instruments and noisemakers for fun. He uses all sorts of old-fasioned analog circuits for that.

MPaulHolmes 04-26-2011 08:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LouMan (Post 233874)
...and when the light clicks and just a idea can become reality you'll feel like a new father everytime a new idea come to life.

And when it blows up you will feel like the father of someone that just blew up. It's really quite sad actually.


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