What does it do?

The SimpleFOC Nano is a tiny motor driver for brushless motors, in the form factor of an Arduino Nano compatible shield. It has the same footprint as your Arduino Nano, and so they can easily plug together using standard headers.

Features:

• 8V - 30V power input
• DRV8313 driver supports 2.5A / phase current
• Supports 5V or 3.3V logic operation
• Supports all Arduino Nano models from original Nano to Nano ESP32
• On-board buck converter powers your Nano via VIN
• SPI pins routed to 6-pin JST plug for easy sensor attachment
• I2C pins routed to 4-pin JST plug (StemmaQT/Qwiic compatible) for easy sensor or peripheral attachment
• Power and fault indication LEDs
• 3-PWM + 3-EN configuration
• Fault output indicates error conditions
• Sleep input allows shutdown/reset via software
• Measure supply voltage on A0

Thanks to the SimpleFOC Nano's I2C and SPI ports, it also features plug and play compatibility with the sensors I offer here on Tindie, for very quick and easy setup. The I2C port follows the widely used Stemma/QT and Qwiik standards, making your Nano compatible with a huge variety of commercially available I2C extension boards from different vendors.

Based on the DRV8313 integrated 3 phase driver, it has the performance needed to drive small brushless motors:

Compatibility

The SimpleFOC Nano shield has been tested with original Arduino Nanos at time of writing.

Compatible:

• Nano (the original, ATMega 328P) - 5V
• Nano ESP32 - 3.3V
• Nano RP2040 Connect - 3.3V
• Nano 33 IoT (SAMD21) - 3.3V
• Nano 33 BLE & Nano 33 BLE Sense (nRF52) - 3.3V

Compatibility in development:

• Nano Every (ATMega 4809) - 5V
• Nano Matter (Gecko)- 3.3V

The SimpleFOC Nano shield should support Nano models from other vendors, providing they are compatible with the original Arduino hardware. In addition, the SimpleFOC nano shield may support other MCU boards in Nano form factor, such as the ST Microelectronics Nucleo 32 boards or others. These boards would fit the shield physically due to their form factor, but may or may not work depending on pin-assignments, software support and electrical compatibility.

Why did you make it?

The regular SimpleFOC shield is a tried and trusted tool, but for some purposes it is a little bulky. The SimpleFOC mini is far smaller, but isn't in a handy shield form factor.

The SimpleFOC Nano shield combines the ease of use of the original shield with a nano-sized form factor, ideal for your more compact projects.

Using your SimpleFOC Nano

The shield is compatible with SimpleFOC, the leading Arduino library for brushless motor control. Within the library, the SimpleFOC Nano is supported by a dedicated driver class to get you up and running with minimal setup, and the library comes with excellent documentation to help you write code for your project. For standard use cases, one of the examples might be enough.

While the provided software is for Arduino, the shield can of course also be used with other frameworks or development environments, and the hardware is documented here.

What's included

• 1 x SimpleFOC Nano Shield
• 2 x 15pin female headers

Note:

The coins or figurines shown in some images are for size comparison, and are not included. The Arduino Nano MCUs shown in some images are usage examples, and are not included.