Hi,
But doesn't the sabertooth controller use PWM for motor speed control whereas that circuit requires a "smooth" DC voltage?
Sabertooth's transistors are switched at ultrasonic speeds (32kHz) for silent operation.
Would that circuit still work?
Well spotted!
However, I don't think it will be much of an issue, because the 32 kHz should be fairly easy to filter out of the equation and I have a hunch that the poles will show through it.
If it fails, a Hall switch or other method may be the way to go.
Perhaps
lcab could post some photos of the motors?
I wonder why they went that high in frequency on this controller, as even young people (i.e. kids) cannot hear 25kHz (even 10kHz would probably not make much noise, as the noise comes from armature windings pushing and pulling their neighbours and the mass of the copper will limit their movement increasingly as the frequency goes up.
Further, at 32kHz, there is no PWM at the motor (due to the armature inductance), but an LC smoothed pulsating DC, so the only joy they'll get is reduced power loss - This may or may not be valid for high speed outrunners - I haven't ever tested one, so perhaps their inductance is adequately low to enable PWM at that frequency.
Yet another bad thing about going up in frequency, is that the switching loss increases, as the switching transition times (which is an unchangeable feature of the power transistors) will occupy a larger relative part of the period.
To make a good PWM control, it should be kept at around 1..5kHz (depending on motor specs.), as on high frequencies, the part of the waveform with full voltage, which is what gives it good torque, is "integrated" down to (close to) the mean voltage.