New hardware advice?

hardware support
1

hello!
i’m a new member of the simpleFOC community looking to begin prototyping. i’m a bit overwhelmed by all the options for hardware and am hoping someone here can offer advice on which bits to get that will offer the smoothest, best supported prototyping process.

my goal:

testing a few motors in a closed loop system to determine which one has the best balance of size and torque for my project. to start i’ll be testing the GM2804 and GM3506 gimbal motors. i’ll also be using this setup to tune values i can hand off to the rest of the team for the larger project.

sensor accuracy is important, though i won’t be running at high speeds. from what i read a 14bit spi sensor is best?

for mcu i read the ESP32 is a good choice, but i’m curious to know if that might be overkill?

i only need one motor running, but am open to a dual driver board if that’s easier to come by.

it doesn’t need to be an ultra-compact setup, as this is just for prototyping and tuning behaviors.

if anyone has suggestions for which driver board and mcu to get i’d really appreciate it.

thanks!
-sean

2 Answers

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2

Hi,
in my opinion the MKS ESP32 dual boards are a bit overkill for gimbal motors. E.g. the current sensor won’t be able to work well, since the motor current is low and the adc of ESP32 is noisy.
Of course you can run the motor without current sensing, that’s what I do all the time.

A better match would be the new SimpleFOC-mini v2.1, but it’s not on AliExpress yet. You’d have to order it directly from the manufacturer.

3

thanks for sharing these thoughts. that board looks great but i’m not really up for having a run produced. i decided to go with one of the mks boards since i was able to pick one up on amazon.