Electrical – IR2130 BLDC controller problems

The problem

The reason the N channel MOSFETs you have chosen get hot is because they have an abysmal on-state resistance:

At just 800 mA the transistors will dissipate about 1 W of heat. The power loss will quadruple every time you double the current (P = I²R).

Without a heat sink the thermal resistance from the junction to the atmosphere is about 62 °C/W, meaning that even 1 W will raise the junction temperature to 83 °C when operating at room temperature, which is why they are hot to the touch.

Solutions

• Aquire N channel MOSFETs better suited for the task. You need to switch low voltages (<30 V) and high currents (>5 A), yet you selected a high voltage low current MOSFET. Some suitable MOSFETs as an example: AON7752, AOD516, BSC886N03LS G, EKI04047. Note how the Rdson (on state resistance) is less than 10 milliohms (very low conduction losses), and the threshold voltage (Vgsth) is lower than 4V (important if the supply voltage in your circuit is low).

• Get better P-channel MOSFETs. Although not as ill-suited to the task as the IRF610PBF is, the P channel MOSFETs you have chosen still aren't very good for what you are trying to use them for. Example: I80P03P4L_07-DS, AOI4185.

• Heat sink the transistors if much heat is still produced. Be aware that the drains of the transistors are electrically connected to the cooling tabs, so you need to isolate them from each other.

• If the transistors become much hotter at higher PWM frequencies you will likely want to add a proper push-pull gate driver. You can either design one yourself from discrete components or just buy a purpose made chip.

Don't just buy the parts I listed, search for suitable components using the parametric search tools that distributors such as Digikey, Mouser or Farnell offer. There are literally thousands of MOSFETs on sale to choose from.

If this is trapezoidal drive, you appear to be turning on the gate of one of the "off" phases. This may be due to the reverse transfer capacitance which is quite high with all of those MOSFETs in parallel, or possibly you are drawing enough current in your inductive current path on board board to pull down the source with respect to some of the gates.

I would start by reducing the value of the 10K pull down resistor on the gate to 1K and see if this improves your problem - this may work if it is the drain-to-gate capacitance turning the FET on. In any case, measure the gate voltage on the FETs during their off period with respect to the source.