GateKEEPER motor controllers support a propeller parking feature which will actively hold or “park” the motor at a specific angle whenever throttle is reduced to zero. This is advantageous for applications such as VTOL’s which require some motors to be stationary during flight in a particular position to reduce air drag.

A motor which has hall-effect sensors and magnets integrated specifically for propeller parking purposes is required.

Propeller parking requires the following hardware:

By default propeller parking is not enabled. In order to enable it, the following settings must be changed in the Hargrave Configurator:

Enable Propeller Parking: True

Motor Pole Pairs: Set to the number of pole pairs in your motor. This is the amount of permanent magnets on the rotor divided by two. This setting ensures that the amount of mechanical rotations completed is corrected for timeout and offset purposes.

Propeller Parking Transition Direction: This setting tells the motor controller whether the active output of the hall effect sensor is high or low. IF - Sensor output is normally pulled low and pulled high on detection -> Set the setting to High Transition. IF - Sensor output is normally pulled high and pulled low on detection -> Set the setting to Low Transition.

Propeller Parking Hall Input: This is the hall input pin which is wired to the hall effect sensor output from the motor. By default the setting is A. This setting will need to be set to which ever pin the hall effect sensor from the motor is wired to.

Changing the following settings can better optimise propeller parking to your system.

Propeller Parking Timeout: This is the number of rotations to complete while attempting to park the drive-train. If the system was not able to be parked within this number of rotations the operation will time-out and the motor will stay parked in its current position. To park successfully the motor controller must be able to identify a transition on the hall effect sensor to correctly position the motor. When set to 0 the motor controller will continuously attempt to park.

Propeller Parking Turning Strength: The commanded duty cycle while turning during the propeller parking process. The amount of torque generated will depend on the motor. Increasing this value will increase the torque generated by the motor, but will increase system temperature and power consumption. For efficiency critical applications we recommend minimizing this value to the minimum value needed for desired operation.

Propeller Parking Stopping Strength: The commanded duty cycle while the motor is parked. The amount of torque generated will depend on the motor. Increasing this value will increase the torque generated by the motor, but will increase system temperature and power consumption. For efficiency critical applications we recommend minimizing this value to the minimum value needed for desired operation.

Propeller Parking Angle Offset: This setting allows the propeller parking angle to be offset from the detection angle. When using hall-effect sensor based propeller parking, the offset angle is limited based on the angular range that the motor’s hall effect sensor remains active for.