Odrive high-performance motor control for brushless motors

In my eternal search for suitable motors for lineal actuators, I thought in the small brushless motors used for electric skates and RC, they are quite powerful, even more than steps and they don't loose torque when getting faster. So, I came across to this: https://hackaday.io/project/11583-odrive-high-performance-motor-control



DESCRIPTION
Stepper motors are ubiquitous in hobby robotics projects: If you make a robotics or automation project today, it is very likely you will use them. Almost all DIY projects from 3D printers and CNC mills, to other kinds of projects like air hockey robots, use them. However in industrial automation, brushless servomotors have taken over, and it's clear why: They don't lose steps, are much more powerful, efficient, and silent.

However, brushless motors are not unique to expensive industrial automation equipment. In fact, you can get some very powerful and cheap motors at hobby shops. The electronics to drive these motors are also dirt cheap. So how come virtually no non-industrial automation systems use them?

To be honest, I have no idea. Seriously, a driver that allows this should clearly exist.
But since it didn't, I decided to make one.

Key specs:

• 2 motor channels
• 1 DC-DC converter channel: For powering the system with an arbitrary voltage power supply.
• 24V bus voltage
• 150A peak motor current
• 75A peak DC-DC current
• Encoder feedback for arbitrarily precise movements
• Supports power regeneration
• Use of a high power density Li-Po battery means you can achieve >1kW peak power output with only a modest power supply.
• It will feature various optimal control strategies and motion profiles.
• Permissive licence on both hardware and software: You use this project in anything you like, even commercial products (as long as you attribute this project's contributors).
• Low cost: The target is to reach less than $50 for a fully assembled board.

I asked the guy what do I need to use it with Simtools:

"There is a USB Serial port that should be able to receive commands (position, velocity, and/or force). You may need to make a simple protocol to interface with your PC software, but that should be quite easy."

Some of the motors suitable for this controller and also for our application:


Turnigy Aerodrive SK3 - 4250-350kv
Turnigy Aerodrive SK3 - 5065-236kv
Turnigy Aerodrive SK3 - 6374-149kv

What do you think?

I think this is cool!

Unfortunately, the brushless motor driver will not edit the arduino code

the cost seams grate... but, as far as i understud, we still neet to put this motors inside an actuator design, am i right??

or there is some sort of gear box for this littles monsters?

- if the only problem is the development of a new arduino code, we could source the parts to a genius in this forums, and we all can make an small crowd founding here, so we can pay the parts and a lot of coffee.

IMHO I find this very interesting, especially if the servo drive allows direct communication with the motor. I'll be watching this space!

They have a forum too.
https://discourse.odriverobotics.com/

Hey, Oskar here, the author of the ODrive project.
I spoke to the guy behind the Maker Muscle at Maker Faire this weekend. He bought an ODrive kit to put on his actuator. So maybe that concept will help to illustrate what kind of gearing could work?

it seams that the card is a little bit expensive now, it was like $150 us dlls or so

It is $120, but that is for two motors.

I think these will be a really great fit for simulation builds. Lot of power in a very small space, very high performance solution compared to DC motors. I'm prototyping an actuator now using an SK3-6374 with a VESC controller. Need to get the magnetic encoder working and I'll show it off.

Sorry, I don't understand what you mean, maybe has to be something with this? :




The guy sells not only the driver (U$S120) but also a motor and encoder Kit for U$S80 (the motor is quite powerful at more than 2NM and even more considering its maximum speed of 8400rpm so you can actually make a 2x1 gear to duplicate that and still get over 4000rpm).
I don't have any relation to this project, I just think it would be great is this kind of motor can be used as they are not only cheap, but also lightweight enough to import from anywhere.

I would like to know what @Thanos do think about this as some of us are waiting for the kickstarter controller.