Motor drivers reduce spin-up time to just seconds

9th December 2014

Siobhan O'Gorman

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Reducing spin-up time to just seconds, a 12V motor driver family has been introduced by Texas Instruments. Making tuning stepper and brushed DC motors easier, the DRV8846 driver integrates a proprietary adaptive current control technology that automatically tunes motor performance. By using a simple PWM control interface and minimal external components, the DRV8848 simplifies designs.

The DRV8846 is offered with adaptive current regulation, which dynamically changes current regulation schemes according to load conditions, with no configuration required. Allowing end equipment manufactures to speed time-to-market, this simplifies system-level tuning and debugging. Minimal current ripple is enabled by the 1/32 micro-stepping indexer and adaptive current regulation, ensuring smooth, precise motion profiles and reduced acoustic noise.

The DRV8848 can operate without current sense resistors, therefore, the supply decoupling capacitors are the only external components required for operation. However, the resistors ensure a more precise motor operation.

Both devices are fully protected against fault conditions, reducing design complexity and increasing system reliability in motor applications, such as 3D printers, IP security cameras, refrigerator damper control, HVAC, home automation equipment and robotic vacuums.

The DRV8846 is offered in a 24-pin, 4x4 QFN package, priced at $1.50 each in 1,000 unit quantities. Offered in a 16-pin, 5x6.4 HTSSOP package, the DRV8848 is priced at $1.30 each in 1,000 unit quantities.

EVMs are available for both the DRV8846 and DRV8848. Featuring a user-friendly GUI via a MSP430 MCU and USB interfaces, the DRV8846EVM and DRV8848EVM allow users to quickly and easily evaluate device features and performance. TI’s EVMs are priced at $49.