DIY motor driver

Hello, I need to control 6 brushless motors each taking a max of 9amps at 12.5VDC and 2 brushed motors taking a max of 3amps at 12.5VDC. Typically I would just buy a pre-made H-Bridge, but since I need to control so many different channels it gets expensive... I need to be able to run the brushless motors in fwd/rev and PWM for PID control through Arduino... The 2 brushed motors are 12v 120mm PC fans and I'll be controlling the speed of those based on temperature through PID.

Any advice on how to go about this would really be appreciated. I'm not even sure what chips to use, etc. I found a bunch of cheap Chinese controllers on eBay but they use very low powered ST L298 chips.

Thanks!

Try the motor controllers at pololu.com, they have quite a range available.

Thanks, I didn't think about looking there for chips! I have some of their prebuilt motor driver boards and love them.

Could you please point me in the right direction for finding a mosfet that can switch 9+ amps? I went over my design and realized that I really only need PID control over 2 motors now and the rest can be done by switching the devices (they're solid state) on/off when they hit their target values.

Thanks!!

Could you post a link or picture of your brushless motors. Most such motors don't work with a H-drive controller which are designed to work with single winding motors.

Lefty

Could you please point me in the right direction for finding a mosfet that can switch 9+ amps?

retrolefty:
Could you post a link or picture of your brushless motors. Most such motors don't work with a H-drive controller which are designed to work with single winding motors.

Lefty

They're actually not motors, they're thermoelectric coolers (Peltiers).

zoomkat:

Could you please point me in the right direction for finding a mosfet that can switch 9+ amps?

N-Channel MOSFET 60V 30A - COM-10213 - SparkFun Electronics

Nice, thanks!!

zoomkat:

Could you please point me in the right direction for finding a mosfet that can switch 9+ amps?

N-Channel MOSFET 60V 30A - COM-10213 - SparkFun Electronics

That mosfet will dissipate around 4W when passing 9A, so it will need a heatsink, which isn't ideal. I would choose a mosfet with lower Rds(on) such as IRLU8726PBF or IRLB8748PBF.