CIRCUIT SOLUTION

PWAyMan MOTOR
CONTROLLER
Following a brief mention in his column, Roger Amos expands on
the design of a railway modellers' motor controller which makes
comPromises without sacrifices.
Two techniques have dominated the design of elec- be living the controller a limited measure of
tronic controllers for the DC motors used in model intelligence.
trains and slot racing cars. Closed -Loop Control is The Right Track
an analogue technique in which the voltage at the con-
troller's output is compared with a control voltage - in its My approach was to employ both pulse width and
simplest form this may consist of a power Darlington with pulse amplitude modulation. I christened the resultant
technique 'Pulse Width and Amplitude Modulation'
its base bias taken from a pot and the load in its emitter
(PWAM). This acronym reminded me of the railway
circuit Pulse width modulation (PWM) is a digital jargon
technique in which the motor is fed pulses whose width
'permanent way' meaning track, so I called the
is varied to control speed. Normally some form of controller the 'PWAyMan'.
The PWAyMan delivers a square -wave PWM output
variable -duty -cycle multivibrator is used to provide an
butthe pulse amplitude is under direct closed -loop con-
input to a power transistor or thyristor. trol from the speed control. Pulse width is controlled bya
Both techniques have their pros and cons, summed up
in the table. An ideal controller would combine all the servo which compares the control voltage with the
best features and, so far as the laws of thermodynamics motor EMF. This is measured by a sample -and -hold
permit, eliminate all the problems. technique operating during the spaces between pulses.
Speed is indicated on a speedometer (Fig.1).
CLOSED -LOOP PWM
The controller has been extensively tested with a
AREA
variety of 00 -gauge locomotives and found to do al I that
starting/crawling good excellent was required. It gives fine control of speed with verytight
motor noise silent raucous speed compensation. A time contant of 2.5s in the servo
motor heating negligible a serious problem system makes the controller's response clearly visible -
output transistor runs hot runs cool as a train approaches a down gradient it accelerates
briefly and then on go the brakes! Give a train a helping
The ideal controller would also have another desirable pull on its way and the speedometer correctly kicks
property. Let's face it, most electronic controllers are before the train slows then resumes its original speed.
fairly dumb beasts. They deliver an output that is cap- Traction is improved since wheelslips automatically
able of giving quite fine control of motor speed, but result in counter -action. And impeding a train's pro-
apart from some form of overload protection, rarely do gress with a finger automatically raises the duty cycle so
they monitor the motor to see if it is doing what the the train struggles hard to get away.
operator intends. Yet it's not difficult to measure the Motor noise is quite unobtrusive at low speeds since
motor's speed and use this as an inputtoafeedbackloop pulse amplitude is then low. Similarly, no motor heating
to lock the motor speed to the control voltage. This has been observed, this being proportional to the square
would provide compensation for varying loads, when of the controller output voltage at low speeds when
the model negotiates a gradient ortight curve. We would motor EMF is negligible.
It has two disadvantages. Heat sinkage is still needed
COMPARATOR forthe output device and the circuit is rathercomplexfor
a controller. But there's always a price to pay for
DC
performance.
POWER
AMP
SAMPLE
Setting up
CONTROL 0
VOLTAGE CHOPPER AND
HOLD
It is essential for correct operation that the motor
EMF monitoring circuit works properly. The best way to
OUTPUT check this is by the speedometer. RV3 is used to calib-
rate this. Different locomotives may need different sett-
V
ings of RV3 until the meter reads 30 (a 1 00uA movement
SPEEDOMETER is assumed). Vary the train speed and you should find
that the meter reading varies in proportion. Stalling the
INTERVAL
loco should bring the reading to zero, as should lifting it
STROBE0 TIMER off the track. If you have other voltages on the track (such
as track circuit voltages), they may cause spurious
Fig. 1 Block diagram of the motor controller.
speedometer readings when there is no loco on the
track.
ETI FEBRUARY 1986 49