List of tested off-the-shelf drivers that work with SimpleFOC. The list is going to be updated as you post your findings
This thread will serve as a place to post and update community tested drivers before we update Drivers | Arduino-FOC (simplefoc.com). Please make sure to list your whole set-up and what you had to do to have a working set-up. Please make note that posting about drivers that didn’t work is also valuable.
BLDC motor:
L6234
DRV8301
DRV8302
Stepper motor:
MX1508
TB6612
Both:
L298
L293
I know I’m missing a lot, please help me with the ones I’m missing
All of them are dual-H-bridge motor drivers, all of them can drive 2 DC motors or 1 stepper. But only the L298N (on the right) can drive BLDCs, it seems.
The are, from left to right:
DRV8833 - AliExpress - Datasheet - Can’t get it to work. The init routine sort of runs, but the motor then won’t rotate.
MX1508 (?) - AliExpress - “Datasheet” seemingly does not really exist - Not working
In all three cases, the initialisation seems to do something, moving the motor a few steps in the usual way, but the drive does not work at all, with the motor emitting a low hum, not moving, and occasionally showing a bit of movement if you change the target velocity, move it by hand or reverse direction.
Its a shame, because these boards are super-cheap and fairly small, and promise a bit more efficiency than the L298N due to their FET-based designs.
The DRV8833 is too “smart” compared to the L298N - it has its own PWM scheme, does internal processing on the inputs to combine them with its current limiting, and the datasheet even says it accepts PWM input on only one input pin at a time… so I guess its a no-go for SimpleFOC.
Not sure… not enough documentation on this chip to say, but I guess it is the same kind of reason as the other two.
With this chip it is the active brake feature, I think, which prevents the use with SimpleFOC. If you look at the truth table, it handles inputs 1 1 or 0 0 in a special way - I guess that’s a no-go when you’re trying to drive 3 separate using a half-bridge each.
