The CL3-E controller from Nanotec is intended for small stepper and BLDC motors with a continuous output of up to 70 W. Designed as a housing-free board with a size of only 40x60 mm, it is ideally suited for laboratory automation equipment as it covers a broad range of applications with a variety of motors and interfaces. These range from open loop stepper motors, which respond autonomously to digital inputs, to highly dynamic BLDC motors with encoders that are controlled via the CAN network. Nanotec's newly developed sensorless closed loop control of stepper motors is supported as well. With an operating voltage of 12–24 V, a rated current of 3 A and a peak current of 6 A, the board offers a cost-effective solution for miniature BLDC motors and stepper motors with a size of up to NEMA 23. The CL3-E can be connected via USB, CANopen, RS232 or RS485 interfaces and has five digital inputs, two analog inputs and three digital outputs. Application programs created in the NanoJ programming language can be executed directly in the motor controller. The programs are synchronized with the digital inputs and outputs and with the instructions received from the fieldbus in 1-ms cycles via the real-time operating system. In this way, simple applications can be implemented entirely without higher-level control. In complex applications the higher-level controller is unburdened and the bus load reduced.
