Article in 'Model Engineer' - "Brushless DC Motors"
Model Engineer magazine Vol.233 No. 4754, 18-31 October 2024
A review of our experience using brushless motors over ten years, with a comparative critique of common brushed motor miniature locomotives.
The design of electronic motor control systems is now easier and much more affordable due to advances in the electronics industry. The time has come to look again at how we design multi-motor tractive applications.
It is now becoming economically sensible to re-arrange the design. Instead of using a controller incorporating one piece of power electronics to feed electrically connected motors, reliability is improved taking power electronics out of the central controller and using separate power stages for each motor.
The central controller is simplified and now communicates with any number of motor/driver units using a modern communication method such as 'CAN Bus'.
In his way, problems with any one motor are safely handled locally without pulling down the whole system.