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BLDC motor + "custom" controller = smoke 1

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stabmaster

Chemical
May 30, 2005
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I have a BLDC motor built by ebmpabst. It is magnetically driving a fluid-o-tech gear pump (they came together).

I am trying to run this off of solar panels and I had a custom board built by solarcontrols.com in order to drive this motor.

The ebmpabst motor is driven normally by "variodrive" driver; however, I had a spec sent to me which describes the commutation for those who wish to use their own products.

Matching the pins, it appears that the motor doesn't want to work. It appears that the motor locks into a position when the drive is powered.

solarcontrols told me that this is because the sensors and switches are out of phase, which makes plenty of sense; however, I checked my wiring numerous times. I then tried every permutation (6 permutations)) for the hall sensor configuration but to no avail.

Finally I placed everything back to where they should have been originally. Upon doing so, I spun the motor against its will and saw/smelled burning circuit board. I don't think I let this persist long enough for the motor to have given up the ghost, but I'm not sure.

Is there something I can use to troubleshoot a BLDC motor?? I assume the answer would be: use a different drive.. and to troubleshoot the drive, use a different motor.

Is there any other way to determine what is not working properly? I have studied the spec's carefully and I'm quite confident that I did my part correctly.

On another note, I had the harness soldered for me, and it is possible that there may be a short; however, I tested this with a multimeter numerous times but never found such a short.

Any thoughts on where to start on this?
 
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Alas.. it may.. but, in this case what I did was re-connect the embpabst and use my voltmeter, while spinning the motor against its will, by hand. One of the hall sensors gave 0 (null) for the entire 360 degrees.

Further, when disconnected, and "ohmed out," the same hall sensor gave me 46 ohms to the common around 360 degrees whereas the other two hall sensors gave me open circuit.

Ok... so i figure that when i smoked my motor, it damaged this hall sensor (great).

...................grrr.......
 
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