As you probably all know SimpleFOC is entirely community driven and non-profit project.
The aim of it is to simplify the FOC and provide a set of flexible and easy-to-use hardware and software modules for motor control.
Over the years we have developed many hardware boards that help starting with FOC easier and integrate well with SimpleFOC. We have setup our shop with the main goal to make these boards available for the community. As soon as the boards would become available elsewhere we usually stopped selling them in our shop.
Nowadays there are many different companies selling and developing SimpleFOC boards, such as for example makerbase, aliexpress, or even sparkfun. And countless more individual designs that were created and made available by our community members.
Recently we have been searching for a partner reseller that would allow us to guarantee the quality of boards being sold as well as allow us to do quick iterations and fast rollouts of new boards in the future.
So we are happy to announce that we have fund a great partner and started the collaboration with Makerfabs. Makerfabs will assure a steady supply of SimpleFOC boards at reasonable price for our community, and will be the platform of choice for us to launch any new boards in the future.
See currently available boards at makerfabs.com
Of course, our boards will continue to be open-source (and all the future ones that might com e as well) and will be sold by other sellers online. Most of them have a good documentation and good reviews. So feel free to chose the one that fits your needs the most.
Will the production acceptance-test procedure be published alongside the board revisions? It would be useful for other manufacturers and builders to reproduce the same checks as new revisions roll out.
I did not really think about it much in that way since the library examples already cover most of the tests.
Makerfabs does the testing themselves, we have provided them with some support on it but they have their own team designing tests as well.
But for example for microsporas, the testing code is in testing_code branch.
That’s great news! But 30$ shipping with DHL is a lot. I just ordered a microspora and some mini v2.3.
BTW: I wish, the microspora would come with a diametral magnet or makerfab would suggest to buy them (if they have them in stock)
By the way, I see you’ve released v2.3 of the mini board. 150mV/A seems quite low for current measuring. I think I’ve commented on this before but it would be good if you allowed the GAIN pin to be pulled to different places to adjust the current sensitivity.
shows GAIN is tied to ground. I agree that perhaps you could modify your ADC reference voltage but it would be better if the GAIN could also be configured.
@o_lampe I do agree that shipping it with a magnet would be much better. I’ll see if we can organise something.
@gimbal_pete, You are right that it might be tool low for certain motors. Maybe in the v2.4 we could have a configurable gain to 150 or 300. Using a good old soldering pad.
@Dav3rn, I think thet had a holiday season in the last few weeks, that might explain it. I’m sorry I don’t have much info on this.
I recieved an confirmation email, when the goods were shipped. I opted for “registered air mail” but haven’t got a tracking number either. Glad I paid with paypal, so if anything goes wrong, I have money-back garanty.
Makerfabs is a smaller business it seems. Their warehouse has less than 100 items listed and many of them are out off stock.
But I still have good faith in it.
Jumpers are also an option (the plastic cuboid things you get for motherboards). You don’t even have to populate the jumper socket - just have the 2 pads that someone can solder to to allow testing of different gains.
Funny coincident, I received my order today. But there’s good and bad things to report:
Good:
well packaged, propper solder job, overall good quality
Bad:
they placed a heatsink to the drv-chip but on all four Mini V2 boards I received, the heatsink fouls ( or almost fouls) other components. Which tells me, that there was no quality control nor functional check.
The microspora board (same driver chip) comes without heatsink, and the surrounding components are higher or same height as the drv chip.
As I mentioned before it comes without magnet, but even worse, it doesn’t come with any wiring loom.
So I have to figure out what connectors they used and buy male connectors (they often come in packs of 100, YAY).
Maybe even have to crimp the wires? IDK.
I hope you’ll have your boards soon, and that they will have it in stock soon. I suppose that they got more orders than expected.
@o_lampe,
The mini heatsink ia not really needed, but they probably decided to include it in testing. To be honest I don’t have much info on that.
But I can ask them to remove it if the community decides that it’s not needed.
The decisions about microspora hardware configuration is entirely mine and has nothing to do with makerfabs. I suggest to open another thread for these kind of discussions. Feel free to open a GitHub issue as well, or even make a contribution if you feel like it.
There are many ways of improving it for sure.
The unbrincking part I don’t really understand to be honest.
Having a production partner makes logistical sense, but the breakdown is Makerfabs’ inability to deliver, communicate proactively, or maintain accurate inventory counts on their website.
I placed an order on Oct 3rd for two Microspora v1.7 boards, which were listed as “In Stock” at checkout. Shortly after ordering, I contacted them to request an upgrade from airmail to DHL shipping in an attempt to salvage my build timeline. The response I got revealed that the boards were actually out of stock and on backorder, along with a promise they would ship the following week. They stated that upgrading shipping from airmail to DHL would incur tariff costs as well as the actual shipping difference, and payment need to be sent directly via PayPal to a generic Hotmail account. This obviously raised a red flag and i opted to just wait it out.
Their committed ship date has now passed with zero follow-up or status changes on their website. My order remains stuck in “Processing” status, while the public storefront still displays the v1.7 boards as being “IN STOCK.”
Fulfillment delays happen, but advertising available stock while orders still sit unfulfilled is completely unacceptable for an official hardware partner. It misleads buyers and undermines the community’s trust in the platform’s supply chain.
So we are happy to announce that we have fund a great partner and started the collaboration with Makerfabs. Makerfabs will assure a steady supply of SimpleFOC boards at reasonable price for our community, and will be the platform of choice for us to launch any new boards in the future.
