ST UM1682, STEVAL-VNH5050A User Manual

June 2014 DocID025392 Rev 2 1/11

UM1682

User manual

STEVAL-VNH5050A Evaluation board

Introduction

STEVAL-VNH5050A offers dedicated power stage and controls suitable for electric DC
motor driving. This evaluation board features the VNH5050A. It is an H-bridge belonging to
the VNH Motor Driver series based on VIPower

®

proprietary technology. Typical

applications are dual washer pump and seat regulation.
This evaluation board consists of a motherboard (STM8 Universal Board) and a daughter-

board. The motherboard, based on STM8 microcontroller, provides the logic section for
monitoring and driving the VNH5050A assembled in the daughter-board. With the aim of
simplifying board usage and settings, ST provides dedicated and user-friendly software
including a Graphic User Interface (GUI). The GUI allows setting VNH5050A parameters
(PWM, Motor direction…), while showing real time device diagnostic information, such as
current output evolution, battery voltage monitoring, board temperature and much more.

Figure 1. STEVAL-VNH5050A

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www.st.com

Contents UM1682

2/11 DocID025392 Rev 2

Contents

1 Hardware description and setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

1.1 Components description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

1.2 Board connections and setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

2 Software installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

2.1 USB Driver installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

2.2 Graphical User Interface (GUI) installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

3 Graphical User Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

4 Revision history . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

DocID025392 Rev 2 3/11

UM1682 List of figures

3

List of figures

Figure 1. STEVAL-VNH5050A. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Figure 2. STEVAL-VNH5050A block diagram . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Figure 3. STEVAL-VNH5050A connections. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Figure 4. Driver installation window (1/2). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Figure 5. Driver installation window (2/2). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Figure 6. GUI installation (1/2). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Figure 7. GUI installation (2/2). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Figure 8. Main Window (1/2) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Figure 9. Main Window (2/2) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Figure 10. Current measurement (Graph) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Figure 11. Driving profiles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Hardware description and setup UM1682

4/11 DocID025392 Rev 2

1 Hardware description and setup

This section provides a description of the main components of this evaluation kit, giving
instruction for a quick setup of the motor control system.

1.1 Components description

The evaluation kit consists of two main components:

• Mother board based on STM8A microcontroller, interfacing host PC with H-Bridge
controller. The communication with the PC is established through isolated USB.

• Daughter Board assembling VNH5050A and the reverse battery protection. The DC
motor has to be connected to this module.

The daughter board and the mother board are provided already properly plugged .

Figure 2. STEVAL-VNH5050A block diagram

1.2 Board connections and setup

Below figure shows the placement of the connectors to be used for supplying the evaluation
board, plugging the electric DC motor and connecting with a host PC through USB cable.

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