I have designed brushless motor drivers in the past. But at the time I was fairly busy and I discovered the VESC 4.12 which is pretty good, but the creator moved to a new design that costs way more and the user community fragmented. The 4.12 designs are still for sale and pretty affordable, but I switched to Odrive due to the very active development community. It seems the price of Odrive has gone up though. I mostly use them at work so I don’t care, but this arm is a personal project and I used a couple odrives I had previously purchased.
There’s other new drivers out there that I haven’t tried. And I could take a crack at a new driver again. But really I want someone in China to produce a good design and sell them on AliExpress. Something with open source design files and code, able to handle 2kw power, able to use one or two encoders, etc. You can get a VESC on AliExpress for $75 or an Odrive clone for $95 with two channels. But I guess I feel bad buying an Odrive clone because the newer hardware isn’t open source so they are unauthorized clones, and I know the Odrive team works really hard. I would feel bad showing off my work with Odrive clones.
There’s other options out there though and I may want to try them. It’s been a while since I’ve needed new drivers at home but with this project I sure do!
There’s other new drivers out there that I haven’t tried. And I could take a crack at a new driver again. But really I want someone in China to produce a good design and sell them on AliExpress. Something with open source design files and code, able to handle 2kw power, able to use one or two encoders, etc. You can get a VESC on AliExpress for $75 or an Odrive clone for $95 with two channels. But I guess I feel bad buying an Odrive clone because the newer hardware isn’t open source so they are unauthorized clones, and I know the Odrive team works really hard. I would feel bad showing off my work with Odrive clones.
There’s other options out there though and I may want to try them. It’s been a while since I’ve needed new drivers at home but with this project I sure do!