Available solutions for Hall Sensored 6-step BLDC motor control using STM32 Nucleo-64 ?

[eBirdman]

Posted on February 07, 2018 at 17:51

Hello, I am new to STM32 and to ST products in general. I am developing a BLDC motor controller. Until now we've been working with other MCU development platform but we want to research other solutions as well. ST site shows quite promising development environment based on STM32 Nucleus-64 development platform but the expected simple Sensored software examples are missing.

Our goal is a speed controller for the sensored Hall-based BLDC motor with 84V max voltage and high current.

AT run time controller will work in 6-step commutation synchronized by Hall sensor, yet for the motor' identification/setup only we use sensorless mode.

I'd like to test this setup from ST :  STM32 Nucleo-64 STM32F401RE MCU + X-NUCLEO-IHM08M1 expansion board + X-CUBE-SPN8 software + six-step firmware library for STM32 Nucleo boards .

 X-NUCLEO-IHM08M1 expansion board has Hall inputs and it's user manual promises the sensored control. But there is nothing about sensored operation in X-CUBE-SPN8, neither in 6-step brushless BLDC motor control software module description. All examples for this hardware setup are either FOC or sensorless 6-point commutation. Why?

I found examples for sensored 6-point development in STEVAL-SPIN3202 but it is for STSPIN32F0A MCU .

I need Hall Sensored software design examples for STM32 Nucleo-64 STM32F401RE MCU + X-NUCLEO-IHM08M1 expansion board .  Any pointers to the available examples will be appreciated.

Thank you

#x-cube-spn8 #stm32 #stm32f401re #x-nucleo-ihm08m1 #hall-sensor #stm32-nucleo-64

[Abdul Fourteia]

Posted on April 22, 2018 at 00:26

Hello Vlad,

I am just wondering were you able have any progress on this topic? I am looking for the same thing for the same board, but I am struggling as well. I bought the STEVAL-SPIN3202, 

but it seems to have the same issue? could you please show me the example for the six-step sensored project?

[eBirdman]

Posted on April 23, 2018 at 04:40

I haven't found any examples and didn't have time to code it myself. My inquiry was passed to the STM application engineers some time ago but as of now - no results. If there were here in this forum more participating users of the X-NUCLEO-IHM08M1 board , they would have chance to know how many people would like to use this board, but so far probably they don't see much interest in this application.

[eBirdman]

Posted on April 23, 2018 at 04:49

I suggest you join also my other thread regarding this topic here:

https://community.st.com/0D50X00009XkWj5SAF

may be they will notice interest to have examples of using their motor control extension boards with Hall sensor.

[eBirdman]

Posted on May 17, 2018 at 18:24

This my request for any example of the Hall sensored code working with STM Nucleo and X-NUCLEO-IHM08M1 expansion board was based on my thinking that the X-NUCLEO-IHM08M1 board indeed was made to work with Hall sensors and was tested in that configuration by the developers. Now I have confirmed reasons to doubt that it was ever tested and whether this board even works with Hall.

The user manual for the board does not clearly specify how to configure that board for the Hall sensored mode. So I requested a clarification from STM tech support (hoping they will fix the User Manual to include the obviously missing information), instead I got an unexpected reply ....

Here is my request:

Missing configuration information for the X-NUCLEO-IHM08M1 motor control board . User Manual UM1996 says ' For FOC control Remove capacitors C3, C5 and C7' and then 'For 6-step control keep capacitor C5 mounted' . Manual says nothing about capacitors C3 and C7 for 6-step control - should they be removed or should they be kept along with C5 ? Or either way is OK?

After 10 days I finally got a response from STM with a 'Solution proposed' . Here it is :

We would suggest you to visit our community page where you can collaborate with other engineers to work on issues. Please see the link below for related information.

https://community.st.com/thread/49857-experiences-and-issues-of-x-cube-mcsdk-motor-control-stm-boards-foc-vs-sensored-and-related

That link provided points to my own post where I am sharing my experience running the above board in FOC mode

while waiting the tech support solution to the missing information: how to configure the board for Hall sensored mode...

STM team has a great sense of humor