High power DRV8302 board support - 15A

Hey guys,

Some time has passed but for the ones who missed it, SimpleFOClibrary from now supports the BLDC driver in question.
https://bit.ly/2BZZ5fG

There is a quick Youtube video demonstration:

You can find more info in the documentation:

Also the SimpleFOClibrary provides you with an example code to run this board.

examples 
 > hardware_specific_examples 
   > DRV8305_driver

The current control loop is not implemented at the moment, but I have it very high in my list of priorities. So the next release of the SimpleFOClibrary should have this feature.

Does anyone have a schematic for the DRV8302 board from aliexpress?

+1

It would be highly useful to have the schematics of this board.

DRV8302
Seems that cannot upload pdf files in community…

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I am very optimistic about joining the support of drv83xx, so that “simplefoc” will evolve into a more practical project. I support you!

Have anyone tested this board with a 13S battery (56,4 V max)? The board is rated 45 V max but the MOSFET’S (NCE80H11D) are rated 80V max, the DRV8302 is rated 60V max, and the big eletrolitic capacitors are rated 63 V.

Usually boards are rated at 75% of the max. Perhaps it would run at 57V but your headroom would be gone. Unless you buy a few to have spares in case you let the magic smoke out. Only one way to find out. Make sure you wear safety glasses. I had a component burst and hit me in the face.

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I bought this board and it works just fine. Tested it with Arduino Uno and with ESP32. The schematics that were shared here helped me a lot.

But I need some advice from you guys. This DRV8302 chip really does the job. Allthough there are rules in the competition I’m in that imposes that I make my own board for the driver. This DRV8302 chip is really hard to solder, and it need a bunch of other componentes like capacitors and inductor with it. I was wondering if you guys don’t know other driver that does all the boostrap thing inside the chip, but also is not that hard to solder. Can I use somehow the L6234 (easier to solder) to drive extermal mosfets? I need something like 10 A and 50V in the load.

Dear @rafaobrs ,

There are no integrated driver ICs that I am aware of that can handle 10A. Most of them top out around 5A.

Infineon makes some “integrated half-bridge FETs” - check out the IFX007T - these FETs eliminate most of the external components involved in a typical driver stage, and can handle quite high currents, but they have other limitations, they like slow PWM and they’re not small.

In terms of MOSFET drivers, there are many models for example in SOT-23 or SOIC-8, which are not that hard to solder, but without an integrated solution you’ll always have the external components for the charge pump, etc…

One thing to look at is using P-Channel FETs for the high side. This eliminates the need for a charge pump and greatly simplifies the driver design, but of course P-Channel FETs just aren’t as efficient as their N-Channel counterparts, so many inverter designs prefer to use only N-Channel.

May I ask, which competition is this? Do they demand you solder the boards yourself, or just design your own driver?
Because for a relatively low price companies like PCBWay or JLCPCB will assemble your design for you - no soldering required :slight_smile:

DRV8332 has 13A max and 11A continuous with a heatsink. I designed a board last year and fully tested it. It’s actually a very competent and capable driver.

I had it designed professionally in a collaboration with a hardware engineer and tested myself.

The driver is large enough to be soldered manually, though it’s a bit of a fiddle to solder it.

Problem is, this driver is out of stock everywhere. I have 5 chips ready for my project, but decided to move to a much more powerful discrete driver design.

Do you mean commercial competition or you are part of some kind of a tournament / challenge?

Cheers,
Valentine

Question, you make your own board just for the driver or you need an integrated MCU / Driver / IO PCB solution?

Thank you so much, Valentine. The DRV 8332 seems to fit in my restrictions, it is not that small to solder and it can handle more than 42 volts. Most of other integrated solutions are up to 40V only, and I’m currently using a 10S lipo battery. I found the DRV8332 available at AliExpress, I’m tinking about buying it. I just think suspeciuous that tiny pins being able to handle such high currents, but if you said you tested it, I belive in it, haha.

You asked about the competition, it is for Shell Eco Marathon. We probably could just design the board and buy it soldered from JLC or PCBWay, but since it have education pourposes too, I like to ask my students to make and solder the boards themselves. They are able to manage SMD like ATMEGA328p-au and I think the pitch between pins in this DRV8332 is very similar, though pretty feasible.

We also make other board for the MCU, we are working with modular PCB’s connected with pin header bridges or XT-60_PW. The MCU is currently an Arduino MEGA, but we are just changing it to a ESP32 because Arduino can’t handle the switching fast enough.

Question, the documentation about this board you developed and tested with the DRV8332 is public or shared somewhere?

Thank you so much for the help!

Thank you so much Runger! The IFX007T seems to be a fantastic solution, I’ve never heard about it before, but the problem is it can handle only up to 40V, and I’m using a 10S lipo battery and also thinking about being able to change it to a higher voltage battery in the near future.

Using a P-channel is a great idea too, I think I seen and read so much about the bootstrap thing that my brains just erased the possibility of using N an P channels like traditiona H bridges. Thank you for the tip, I’ll consider it. The problem is that I don’t know if a external gate driver will be also necessary to guarantee the fast charging of the gates, I’ll check it out.

The competition is Shell Eco Marathon, I’m a professor and my students are trying to drive a 450W bycicle brushless motor hahah. For educational porpouses I try to let them design, build and solder all the boards, this also makes it easer to make changes and new versions of the prototypes.

Thank you so much for the attention!

The 8332 is a private project.

It may be easier if they design and solder a discrete board, if you do not have space requirements.

ESP32 you mean the MCU alone or boardlets such as the wroom and wrover with castellated leads?

Students may be able to solder the castellated holes but the esp32 mcu is impossible, I tried to teach my intern student to do it and they failed.

Also you may try the STM32G4 series, they have a version with very large pitch similar to ATMega, very easy to solder manually. Get them discrete transistors and large discrete drivers which are in stock, it’s a lot easier to do than an integrated driver with small pitch.

Give your students the following combination:

LM5109 Texas Instruments driver, very large pitch, up to 90V

STP110N8F6 through hole mosfet, up to 80V or IRFR4510TRPBF Infineon 56A/100V Mosfet

STM32G070KBT6 MCU, these have really large pitch easy to solder, instead of the ESP32.

Cheers,
Valentine

PS Also, discrete component BLDC driver is a lot more educational than integrated drivers.

There are some space requirements but they are not critical. When I said ESP32, I mean the wrover board connected to female headers soldered in the PCB.

About a discrete driver, I don’t know exactly what you mean but I imagine it is what we have already. They have a functional version working with IR2184 drivers, a bunch of other diodes, resistors and capacitors, and with IRF2807 MOSFETS. I just want now to look for alternatives to make the circuit more reliable, smaller, easer to test, and easer to make it not overheat. When I bought the simple FOC board with the L6234 I could learn it and use it so easily that I started to search for solutions to make a high power circuit as simple as the L6234.

Understand. This is very difficult. You may want to look into BLDC IGBT power modules, if this is what you need. They go up to 50A. The 8332 cannot do more than 10A continuous and needs a large heatsink and the leads may not be able to be designed properly to take 10A from the copper.

I did design a 50A IGBT integrated module, it worked but I abandoned it because it exceeded the specs. The IGBT goes up to 600V/50A. They are fully integrated, designed specifically for BLDC motors.

Check the links below.

This FNB43060T2 seems to be exactly what I need. It maybe overkill and need some extra discrete components when compared with L6234, but it will be a lot more simple than our current schematics. I will do some research and buy it. When I test it I will post the results. Thank you!

They are designed for 30kW industrial BLDC motors. Overkill is an understatement.

Please come back and post the design. Many people would be very happy to see the experimental setup. Hopefully it will look like something like the one below!

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Hi, i’ve this board, but i think that it has some problems, how can i test it?

You provide very little information.