Lin Engineering Offers TMC246 Smart Power Motor Driver
Lin Engineering Inc. (Santa Clara, CA), a designer of step motors, offered its TMC246 smart power micro-stepping, pulse-width modulated (PWM), motor driver with sensorless stall detection (StallGuard™) protection, diagnostics, and SPI Interface for applications, where a reference point is needed, but where a switch cannot be used. The TMC246 is a smart power micro-stepping driver for bipolar stepper motors, and the small footprint and high efficiency make the device a solution for embedded motion control and battery-powered designs.
The ability to predict an overload makes the TMC246 an suitable choice for drives, where a high reliability is desired. It provides an SPI™ interface as well as the classical analog/digital control. A full set of protection and diagnostic features makes the device very rugged. The integrated low-RDS-ON TrenchFET® power MOSFETs give a high efficiency, and allow driving of a high motor current of up to 1.5 A per phase without cooling measures, even at high environment temperatures.
The TMC246 features sensorless stall detection StallGuard™ and load measurement; short-circuit protection; over-voltage protection; status flags for short-circuit, open-load, over-temperature, temperature pre-warning, and under-voltage; integrated four-bit digital-to-analog converters; 7 V to 34 V motor supply voltage; up to 1,500 mA output current and more than 800 mA at 105 °C; 3.3 V or 5 V operation for digital parts; low power consumption via low RDS-ON power stage; and standby and shutdown modes.
