Controlling Washing Machine Motor with an Arduino

[djb-systems]

Hi All

I have an old Bosch 3 phase brushless motor from a Washing Machine and its working Inverter board, now I know I could buy a VFD and control the motor that way but I was wondering if anyone has had luck connecting an arduino to a washing machine inverter board and controlling the motor? The invertors brains is 256mc206 microchip and the pins are

1 - TX02
2 - RX02
3 PRG_CLK
4 PRG_Data
5 Reset
6 GND
7 +3.3v
8 SCK
9 SDI
10 SDO
11 SDA
12 SCL

I will continue researching but if anyone has already done this, then no point reinventing the wheel, so any help is appreciated.

Cheers

DJ

 

[danadak]

Google :

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=arduino+washing+machine+motor

Regards, Dana.

 

[djb-systems]

danadak

Thanks for the reply, I have looked at most of these videos and they concentrate mostly on Brushed Universal Motors which is a different type of motor to a BLDC motor unfortunately, the few for BLDCs are using either a VFD or there own design electronics.

Cheers

DJ

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

As the 256mc206 is presumably actually a PIC33EP256mc206, it's a DSC micro-controller, so what it does, and how it's interfaced, is entirely dependent on the software it's running?.

Have a look at https://www.microchip.com/en-us/product/dsPIC33EP256MC206, there's links there to motor control application notes.

Assuming this is just the motor controller?, then it must receive instructions from the main controller (and presumably sends replies back?), then you need to reverse engineer that communication.

Do you have the rest of the working control system so you can monitor the communication?.

 

[djb-systems]

Nigel Goodwin

Hi Nigel, thanks for the reply.

I don't unfortunately, just the inverter and motor that was scrapped from the washing machine, I have lots of both Universal and BLDC motors that have been salvaged from washing machines and instead of getting basic scrap value for them I was looking to see if they could be used for other projects, unfortunately it all seems a lot more complicated than what I was expecting.

DJ

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

Nigel Goodwin

Hi Nigel, thanks for the reply.

I don't unfortunately, just the inverter and motor that was scrapped from the washing machine, I have lots of both Universal and BLDC motors that have been salvaged from washing machines and instead of getting basic scrap value for them I was looking to see if they could be used for other projects, unfortunately it all seems a lot more complicated than what I was expecting.

DJ

Don't forget, reversible, multi-speeds, not really that simple a thing to do.

 

[danadak]

Another approach (sensorless) :

https://www.infineon.com/dgdl/Infineon-AN93637_PSoC_4_Sensorless_Field_Oriented_Control_(FOC)-ApplicationNotes-v05_00-EN.pdf?fileId=8ac78c8c7cdc391c017d0740371063ac

Sensored :

PSOC 6 Based

PSoC6 Sensorless BLDC Motor (BEMF)

Sensorless BLDC motor project available with CY8CKIT-037 kit example, ported to PSoC6 device. By JOBIN THOMAS.

www.hackster.io

Regards,. Dana.

 

[MaxHeadRoom78]

danadak

the few for BLDCs are using either a VFD or there own design electronics.

DJ

VFD's do not play well with BLDC/ECM motors, I have tried it with no luck.
.