How to install stm32 motor control workbench

[Abdul Fourteia]

Posted on April 19, 2018 at 01:51

Hello,

I recently bought two BLDC motor controllers, the STEVAL-SPIN3202 and the X-NUCLEO-IHM08M1 shield forNUCLEO-F401RE.

I have a project to control a BLDC sensored motor. I am not sure how to move forward. I have AC6, IAR and MKD installed. I have tried installed motor control workbench with no luck. X-CUBE-MCSDK executable that can be downloaded from the following link does not work for some reason.

http://www.st.com/en/embedded-software/stsw-stm32100.html

 

I am wondering if there is something else I need to install for this to work?

FIY, I am using Windows10 and I have STM32CubeMX installed.

[cedric h1 · Accepted solution]

Posted on April 19, 2018 at 09:46

It seems that the X-CUBE-MCSDK package is actually a zip file and not an exe. 

If Windows complains that 'The version of this file is not compatible with the version of windows you're running' Try to unzip the file first. It should be fixed in the coming hours...

[Abdul Fourteia]

Posted on April 19, 2018 at 22:19

Thank you for your help.

You are correct. I changed the file domain to zip, and when I unzipped it, another executable showed up. I was able to run that, and it seems the problem is fixed on the server side as well.

[gokay aygok]

Posted on April 20, 2018 at 18:06

hi Abdul,

Have you succeed in installing and generating the code for motor control ? 

[Abdul Fourteia]

Posted on April 21, 2018 at 05:29

Yes, I managed to install it, but I haven't tried it out yet.

[gokay aygok]

Posted on April 21, 2018 at 08:35

Thanks

Could you me please let me know if code generation is successfully working ? I am fed of trying to generate code, but I having some problems in generating the code. (with mcsdk 5.0.2 or 5.0.3)

thanks a lot Abdul...

[Abdul Fourteia]

Posted on April 22, 2018 at 00:03

Hello gokay,

I think I managed to generate the STM32CubeMX project. I can't test this with my motor as the motor control program does not include the STM32F401RE board, which what ST recommends for the NUCLEO-IHM08M1 shield. The project does open using STM32CubeMX. I already tried to compile ''as-is'' with IAR and failed. I am going to try make it work without the motor control workbench software.

What boards do you have btw?

For what is supposed to be a plug-and-play setup, this is kind of frustrating.

[Abdul Fourteia]

Posted on April 22, 2018 at 00:08

I am not sure if this will work, but maybe try with the older version 4.3?

https://github.com/cmglearn/STMicroelectronics

 

[cedric h1]

Posted on April 23, 2018 at 10:26

Dear Abdul,

I understand your frustration. The message around the support of the IHM08 is not very clear.

There is actually two kinds of software solution in order to control a BLDC motor :

   - 6 steps 

   - FOC 

The 6 steps software solution for IHM08 can be downloaded here :

http://www.st.com/content/st_com/en/products/embedded-software/mcus-embedded-software/stm32-embedded-software/stm32cube-expansion-packages/x-cube-spn8.html

 

It supports the IHM08+STM32F401RE or IHM08+STM32F302R8.

The FOC software solution ( 

X-CUBE-MCSDK ) does not support the 

STM32F401RE in the 5.0.3 version. It was not supported in the 4.3 version too. 

We plan to add the support of the STM32F401RE in X-CUBE-MCSDK 5.1 version.

Could you tell me in case of FOC, what is your configuration ? 1 Shunt - 3 shunts ?

Regards

Cedric

[Abdul Fourteia]

Posted on April 23, 2018 at 20:50

Hi Cedric

Let me say this. I really appreciate your help on this matter. Just to give you little bit of background. I have a 250W BLDC motor for a mobile robot. my aim is to run it around 0-300 rpm, so relatively low speed. It's a sensored motor with 3 hall effect, 2 optical, and temperature sensors. The supply voltage is between 42 and 30 volts (10S Lipo).

Based my research, I understand that sensored FOC would be a better fit for me, but I don't care about efficiency at the moment. I don't care if it's sensored or sensoreless drive. I just want to operate the motors using the

SPIN3202 or 

IHM08M1 with the easiest setup possible. From a specification standpoint, they both seem to able meet my needs.

The boards that I have currently are the STM32F401RE and STM32F446RE. I bought the F401 specially for the

IHM08M1

shield, but it's not listed in the ST motor control workbench software.

I am looking into the code you provided in the link. There is a similar one for the SPIN3202. What I am trying to do right now, is to understand the code so I can start manually editing it. I knew I had to do this eventually, but I just thought there might be an ''out of the box'' solution, that is temporary until I make improvements myself. I sort of got motor spin one rotation, but I think it's designed for motors with RPM > 2000, so I need to fix that.

Again thank you for you help. 

On a side note, I don't have the datasheet for the motor, so I was going to use the motor profile. I found out the F4xx series isn't supported, so I might buy a F3xx board. I am wondering if you have a recommendation? I can see the F303RE and F302R8 listed in the software.