I’m very interested in connecting and controlling piezoelectric motors with Gadgeteer. Does anyone know if that is possible and how difficult would it be to implement it?
Here are some details that might help you understand how it works, I got a bit lost
http://pcbmotor.com/information/faqs-21/
Thank you!
Hi murej,
Interesting stuff…
Looking at the datasheet it wouldn’t be that hard looks like you could wire it up using an extender module.
Where did you see a datasheet? The FAQ says that you need to build a driver board. Elsewhere on the site I saw a foot note that the driver board generates the required 200V signals to drive the motor.
@ murej
If you can build the driver board then you can hook that up to a Gadgeteer board with no problems, but building the driver board might not be so easy…
@ GMod(Errol) - I signed up and got sent the link to some white papers - very interesting stuff…
I can send an email with them if you want
@ Justin,
Please do. My addy is storeATgadgeteermodulesDOTcom. Thanks.
@ murej,
If you can look at SQUIGGLE piezo motors then AMS make a driver chip with I2C interface and everything nice. It generates the 40V required for that type of motor.
http://www.ams.com/eng/Products/Piezo-Motor-Drivers
@ Justin
Thanks, got it. That is not an easy driver to build… 
@ GMod(Errol) - Come on…you know you want too… 
Oh, I wanted too, till I saw what the ceramic parts cost. You need 96 chips per motor, 48 on each side of the board. 100 chips cost 85 euro.
So that’s 85 euro for the motor stator parts, then you still need a PCB, rotor, and bearings… 
Yes i did notice the price and there’s no way the slush fund will handle that without the missus noticing
I was also looking into this and I found this file:
http://pcbmotor.com/images/files/PCBMotor-Start-Kit-User-Guide-v1.pdf
with schematics for a simple driver board (which does not look simple at all)
Have you guys got any idea what similar motors me and murej could use instead of a piezo? we need a really small, thin profile motor (hopefully not longer than 20mm) that will be pretty accurate with around a 360 degree accuracy for a full revolution (we need to control it’s position) and not draw too much current (its for a handheld device were working on). oh and we should obviously be able to control it from a Gadgeteer 
Cheers!
Yep. The same circuit was in the document that Justin emailed to me. It is not a simple circuit, and there is a PIC cpu on there which will need a programmer, and the source code for the pic is missing.
I have no idea what else you can use. Do you need rotational motor or linear motor?
We need a rotational motor we can control the position of - a stepper would be ideal, but we cant find one that is small enough and with a high enough resolution (The smaller steppers usually have a resolution of 7.5-18 degrees, which is only about 20 steps in total…)