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Controlling DC motors using microcontrollers, what chip is best ?

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arbj2

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Hi,

I would like to control a DC motor that is used in a drone using a micro-controller, the motor operates on 3.7V lithium battery.

Could anyone suggest a suitable motor control IC that can be easily connected to an mcu, and is also compact for mounting on restricted space.

I have looked at L293D as a possible solution, but this seems to operate on 4.5V min, however I need something that works on 3.7V

Please help.

thanks
a
 

What type of motor?
 

L293D can be used to drive DC or step motors. But it gives only 600mA. Hard to say without take a look at schematics.
 

The motor has no markings on it, it is installed on a drone (Chinese: Syma X5S make).

I wanted to replace the control board, but unfortunately the cost of import and transportation is expensive. So I thought I could try and do some experiments on it instead.

I suspect the motor is not an ESC based one, as there are only two lines from each of the motors. The control board has an MCU with a watch crystal, and what looks like gyroscope and two N channel dual mosfets for driving the motors.
 

How many wires does the motor have?
 

motor has 2 lines only. One line connects to M+ and the other to M- (as mentioned on the PCB)
 

motor has 2 lines only. One line connects to M+ and the other to M- (as mentioned on the PCB)
Than it's a brushed DC motor.
An easy way to control it would involve an MCU and a MOSFET.
 

thanks shaiko,

could you suggest a suitable MOSFET that I can buy online for this application. Also something that works on 3.7V DC would be suitable as I will be powering from a 3.7V battery.

thanks for the help
 

To recommend a suitable MOSFET that wouldn't be an overkill requires to know the current you want to drive.

We know it's a quad so there's 4 motors and it's safe to assume that >90% of the power goes to the motors.
If you tell us the battery capacity and the time it takes for it to discharge (the flight time you get from a fully charged batter) we'll be able to (roughly) calculate the current consumption of each motor and make a wise decision about the MOSFET.
 

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