An Arduino Nano Electronic Speed Controller (ESC) — Part 2

In Part 1 we explained the design of our Arduino based ESC. Part 2 will focus on the power stage and why MOSFET drivers are needed. The most current that a digital pin from one of the Nano family can provide is 40mA and most of the boards have a capacity much less than this.

An Arduino Nano Electronic Speed Controller (ESC) — Part 1

The BR2205 2300KV BLDC motors that we will be testing our ESC on have a maximum current draw of almost 30A. Hence the need for a power stage.

This series of articles was sponsered by PCBWay — PCB Prototype the Easy 
Way! Thank you for providing all the prototype printed circuit boards used 
in designing our Nano ESC carrier board.

5.0 The Power Stage (3-Phase Bridge)

The motor power stage is a standard triple half-bridge setup, often used for 3-phase BLDC motors (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Three Phase Bridge Circuit

We will use MOSFET’s for the switches in our 3-phase bridge. The three main factors which drive MOSFET selection are: