The teaching of Electric Drives and control systems keeps a high importance and actuality in many academic courses in Electrical Engineering. Sophisticated equipment and techniques are available for laboratory work. Usual form of teaching Power Electronics and Electric Drives requires a degree of abstraction which challenges even the most talented student. The non experienced students can broke some expensive equipment from the other side. What inexpensive equipment, ''toys'', practical works can you suggest to used in practical exercises to teach electrical drives and control systems?
I'd suggest to use some evaluation board (e.g. Microchip MCLV - certainly there are other offers from other manufacturers), eventually complemented by some fast-acting current limiter and eventually by some transzorb diodes.
Using a power supply that cannot exceed the ratings of the power MOSFETs adds to longevity of these boards.
This MCLV translates to "Low Voltage". Given you don't go to the limits of the MOSFETs, this one is virtually indestructible (other than by ESD discharge) and offers a wealth of options. If someone anyway achieves to ruin one or more MOSFETs: replace by a higher-voltage, higher-current part.
As these boards are well-documented, you can as well replicate them - adding and/or subtracting features, adding better semiconductor cooling etc.
Link to start with:
https://www.microchip.com/developmenttools/ProductDetails/DM330021-2
And yes - there's also an MCHV variant.
These ones also can be good: https://www.st.com/en/embedded-software/stsw-stm32100.html
The problem can be hard understandable C code to change something in software.
The ST kit seems to be comparable to the MCLV (or maybe the MCHV - I didn't check the details).
An advantage of the dsPIC based designs: these microcontrollers are less complex, thus somewhat easier to master.
But when it comes to the more advanced algorithms (Park transformation, Clarke transformation, FOC and alike): while being not so easy to understand, they need no modifications; just parameterization.
I know the Microchip documentation quite well, which is exhaustive. (In 2007 I had a hands-on workshop on the MC*.) But I assume ST's documentation doesn't fall behind that. So understanding the code is not too difficult when using the applicable documentation. (The setup of the STM32 is another issue!)
Overall: the least painful way to enter the field of electric drive technology.
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