Making a tool that drives the spindle motor

[rchadwick]

I'm really sick of trying to spin the platters, and then quickly move the heads off. I'm making a motor driver that will spin the platter, and I'm working on the code now. Can anyone think of any 'modes' that would be useful on such a tool? I was originally just going to put on a speed control, but wondered if something else might be useful.

[TerraNova]

Hi rchadwick, maybe PWM(pulse width mod) will help?

[rchadwick]

Thanks, but I have the low level function pretty much figured out. I was thinking of something like "Push this button, and it spins for 10 seconds and stops", or something along those lines. it's controlled by a microcontroller, and I have plenty of code space