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Towards a “PCB Drone” – Making a PCB Motor which reaches 30k RPM [video]
- michaelbuckbee 3y agoI'm deeply unqualified in pretty much every way to comment on the efficacy of this design - but _wow_ am I impressed with both the creativity and the perseverance of this guy. I love software, but there's just something undeniably cool about hardware.
- benj111 3y ago> but there's just something undeniably cool about hardware Personally I just like going lower level. I like Ben Eater making whatever out of a few chips. I've set my line at asm else I'd just end up making a whole computer out of transistors or sand.
- narrator 3y agoAnalog engineering is really difficult because you need to solve differential equations that Wolfram is unable to solve. Most designs were made by very smart people in the 50s at RCA as far as I can tell. Please tell me about how wrong I am. I admit the analog circuit engineering world has looked totally unapproachable to me even as a reasonably competent working computer scientist.
- adgjlsfhk1 3y agothe good news is you don't need exact solutions and there are pretty robust tools for numerical diffeq solving now. the best are Julia's ecosystem, but sundials is pretty decent also.
- CamperBob2 3y ago"LTSpice is all you need," in the vernacular of the times.
- mindentropy 3y ago>Most designs were made by very smart people in the 50s at RCA as far as I can tell. I am very interested to know this. Do you have any resources on this development work done by RCA and how it has shaped the modern world?
- narrator 3y agoWhen I was looking at catalogs of various analog circuit designs, a lot of them were circuits RCA patented that now are public domain because the patents are now expired. They probably aren't the only ones, but they certainly contributed a lot. https://patents.google.com/?q=(analog+circuit)&assignee=rca&oq=assignee:rca+analog+circuit&sort=old&page=1 https://patents.google.com/?q=(analog+circuit)&assignee=rca&...
- eternityforest 3y agoSomething like making a new audio amplifier is pretty specialized, but you don't need any advanced math (Not even algebra) for some of it. As long as you're still pretty much thinking time domain and you don't need to calculate frequency responses and RF stuff there's lots to do. But then again my only analog experience is just IO stuff for digital, I've never done anything interesting in pure analog, I think if you're a real analog enthusiast you might get bored of what you can do without math.
- pretendgeneer 3y agoYou'd love Sam Zeloff http://sam.zeloof.xyz/ http://sam.zeloof.xyz/ he makes DIY transistors
- nickelpro 3y agoI find Sam a little too dismissive sometimes. He has relatively wealthy parents who let him convert a garage into a home fab, and talks about dropping $30k on a second hand ESM like it's no big deal. Don't get me wrong, he's a genius, but everytime he transitions into "anyone can do this stuff!" It rubs me the wrong way
- fukpaywalls2 3y agoYour comment reminds me of those woodshop youtubers with clickbait titles like "diy your own coffee table for only $50", only to find they are using about 10K or more of shop equipment.
- earleybird 3y agoAnd then there's New Yankee Workshop "and now let's go over to the xyz machine for <next-step>".
- mindentropy 3y ago> He has relatively wealthy parents who let him convert a garage into a home fab, and talks about dropping $30k on a second hand ESM like it's no big deal. The envy I feel when I see these guys with such equipment is enormous. I really would love so much to have a loaded electronics work bench especially oscilloscopes, LAs etc. and of course the time to actually play with it. :-(
- all2 3y agoCheck if you've got a local hackerspace! There are a lot of good ones out there. By and large you will find excellent people who want to enable you to do amazing things.
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- trojan13 3y agoThis guy's work and dedication is truly impressive. He posted a video [1] about his concept of a PCB drone 4 years ago and he and his methods have evolved so much. In addition to his highly specialized knowledge of designing, testing and iterating PCB coils, he also makes comprehensive and interesting videos out of it. I highly recommend checking out his channel. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mS_qUbPTYfk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mS_qUbPTYfk
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- ge96 3y agoI saw some product get made that uses the flapping light hologram tech which I'm not sure if he created it first but yeah, pretty cool. The product is some Tomogachi/Pokemon type thing.
- jacquesm 3y agoGreat work this, I wonder if the end goal is a drone why it uses such a strange rotor design rather than something more conventional (which also would obviate the need for such extreme RPMs).
- pests 3y agoIs the end goal a drone? I've watched a bunch of his videos on his PCB motor project and I don't recall him mentioning it was for a drone at all. The title here on HN itself is editorialized to include drone so who knows.
- trojan13 3y agoHe mentions that the goal is a PCB drone, but also mentions laptop cooling as a possible application. The initial design of the motor is a low heat one, as the early iterations had a problem with overheating at low RPM.
- Taniwha 3y agoI think he was more saying that he looked at the chips used for laptop cooling fans for use in his (drone) design
- dist-epoch 3y agoCould you use such a high RPM to make something jet-engine-like?
- jacquesm 3y ago
- agumonkey 3y agoI love these kind of guys. Reminds me of marcoreps too. Kudos to them
- JKCalhoun 3y agoHe convinced me that the keeping the sensor on the PCB is worth it, ha ha.
- parentheses 3y agoI have always wanted an ergonomically laid out electrocapacative keyboard. Maybe this person will one day move on to that project. Definitely a big impact on society.
- ilyt 3y agoWhy, did you managed to use up a mechanical one to the point switches failed ?
- all2 3y agoCapacitive touch sensors aren't horribly complex. I'm betting this is something you could learn about and implement in a fairly short amount of time (6 months with zero electronics knowledge?).
- eternityforest 3y agoFor some I would think more like 1 month if you're dedicated. Every chip has capsense peripherals these days. Even the ones that don't have capsense peripherals secretly do if they have an ADC, that can sometimes be easier to make more reliable than the hardware(Although those might be better for larger areas).
- eternityforest 3y agoI'm not sure how big the real impact on society of that one is, but it's the kind of thing you could probably do pretty easily. Not sure what exactly you have in mind for it so I couldn't give any specific numbers, but I would guess $150 to $500 max if I was doing it, maybe a bit more if you want any super fancy addons, and that's including making the case. But you'd probably have to specify a layout yourself, otherwise that would be the hard part to actually get that one excellent. The rest is all pretty trivial well known engineering, making the layout actually feel nice to a touch typist especially would probably need someone who's very tactile and in tune with the subtitles of doing things by touch.
- pizzafeelsright 3y agoThis is a 100x developer. I am in awe.
- ilyt 3y agoJust passionate and talented hobbyist. It's not exactly [1] new invention, it's not being done because building proper engine is not all that more expensive, especially when you take into count suboptimal PCB coil design. Still need a bunch of custom elements too. Kinda like coilguns, a fun hobby to fuck around and optimize but overall there is a reason it's not really commercially done all that much. But helluva edition to resume if he ever decides to work in industry! - [1] https://pcbstator.com/ https://pcbstator.com/
- greggsy 3y agoBeing a developer hacker and a hobbyist are now mutually exclusive. Many people consider their work a hobby.
- rowanG077 3y agoYou do realise this guy is a fulltime youtuber? He isn't a hobbyist. He is a professional.
- mhb 3y agoWhen Ken Burns makes a home video of him tossing a ball with his son, no one gets confused about whether he's a professional ballplayer.
- rowanG077 3y agoBecause Ken Burns didn't make his living by making videos of him tossing a ball with his son. This guy is making a living by documenting his engineering via video. He is not a hobbyist, He is an engineer who makes money because people find his engineering projects interesting.
- johnzim 3y agoWow. Probably the coolest thing to ever come out of Malta!
- topspin 3y agoCan't help myself: going to arm chair quarterback this. Since sine waves work better at low speed consider a DAC driving small power amps. A dual output 8 bit DAC could easily generate the frequencies involved and allow tailoring the curve with RPM. Closing the loop would likely be easier and more effective with an optical pickup of some sort: that would do away with back EMF problems at different speeds and increase precision for better tuning, which is crucial for efficiency. At some point off-the-shelf motor drivers are insufficient.
- cushychicken 3y agoWould work, but I'd estimate that it would require 4x the circuit area that this fella is working with. Plus adding some Z axis height for the optical encoder. For what he wants to do (real small, real light PCB based BLDC motor), I'd say his approach is right on track.
- topspin 3y ago> it would require 4x the circuit area A DAC would involve a larger PCB. A small DDS (si5341) would be pretty good though at 3x3mm. Three phased channels could drive the six inductors far beyond any feasible speed here. > Plus adding some Z axis height for the optical encoder. A SMT photodiode and IR LED could do this off the edge with some fiddling, which appears to be in ample supply here.
- cushychicken 3y agoHuh? That DDS is a silly choice. For one thing, those chips are $27 a pop and only available in QFN44 and QFN64. (May have been smaller FF at some other point, but not any more.) The final BLDC driver he selected is like $1.50. Not to mention that you can't adjust the drive phases of a DDS with I2C fast enough to be of any use for BLDC. Once you add in a sensor/feedback element, it definitely wouldn't have the latency performance you'd need for BLDC.
- mastax 3y agoYou'd usually want 3 phases for a brushless DC motor, right? Though I'm sure theres a cheap Chinese 3/4 channel DAC on LCSC since the output quality won't matter. I haven't considered using a DAC with a motor before, but that strikes me as extremely inefficient, which is one of the design considerations. You're basically going from a simple class D amp to a class A one. The motor has plenty of inductance so you may as well PWM it for efficiency.
- jeffbee 3y agoI like how he avoided paying $150 for a development kit by whipping out Altium Designer, which I believe costs $4000/year. That must be a paid promotion.
- TaylorAlexander 3y agoYes he is sponsored by Altium and regularly promotes them. I would prefer he used Kicad so everyone could easily use his work but this is the nature of earning money on YouTube sadly.
- LeifCarrotson 3y agoPhil's Lab is another great hardware design YouTuber who also produced some great Kicad content, until Altium paid him to partner with them too. Sure, you can get a free trial through any of the altium.com/yt/<channelname> sponsorships, but if you want to continue to have access after the trial it's merely $12,000 for a perpetual license or $355/mo for a subscription. Just absurd for anyone who isn't using this professionally. Some people pirate it - there are loads of Russian forums selling cracked license keys; be aware that the software with the cracked license will still 'phone home' and earn you a call from Altium legal in a few years with a lawsuit and your public IP/home network MAC addresses, especially if anyone with a legit license opens the files you produce. But it's just not better than Kicad, with the exception of the push router. It's sluggish, and constantly gets more sluggish... "Please wait a moment" is a blatant lie, it should say "I hope you saved recently". You get used to hitting Ctrl+Shift+Esc and force-quitting DXP.exe, because it hangs for 30+ seconds when you try to restart it the normal way. The scripting language is atrocious, but everything is built on layers of decades-old scripts. And when you run any tool that uses a script, you lose the ability to undo past that point. I hear it's no longer written entirely in Delphi, with the infamous "Ignore segfaults" option... but I've long since left for Kicad, when my education license ran out and resetting my VM stopped working I looked at the writing on the wall and ran. I mostly do industrial automation - PLC, CNC, and robotics projects - and prefer to buy parts off the shelf for 10x the (actual) price of building my own PCB to avoid being the only person on the planet who can support that machine, but sometimes the shelf just doesn't have anything to do what you want. And Kicad has been perfect for that.
- corn-cheese 3y agoI've been thinking about building a tiny, (relatively) cheap haptic knob. I wonder if this makes enough torque for it to feel right? Maybe with a big stator and a small knob.
- lysp 3y agoI remember watching this youtube video a while ago: * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ip641WmY4pA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ip641WmY4pA (quick demo) * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q76dMggUH1M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q76dMggUH1M (building)
- sitkack 3y agoYou can use a small BLDC motor as the knob, shaft and bearing.
- joshspankit 3y agoHe’s revolutionizing the small motor category in the best possible way.