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A 24 V brushless driver you can actually source in Lagos
Authorized / open sourceReport an IP concern
Chidi Eze
@chidi-motors
Bought at retail · surveyed May 30, 2026 · CERN-OHL-S v2
- Empirical teardown analysis
Is this worth building, and what does one unit cost in parts?
- Parts cost
- $18.50 – $24
- Parts
- 62
- Fabrication files
- Gerber · Drill · Pick and place · BOM CSV
- Difficulty
- Intermediate
Schematic and layout for a 15 A BLDC driver built entirely from parts with three or more local distributors — the substitution table is the interesting half.
143 comments
2,611 likes
812 savesWhat you may do with this
Published under an open-hardware licence. The licence is a public document and its terms are what you may rely on, so read it before you commit tooling.
What the methods prove
Empirical teardown analysis
The unit disassembled and recorded part by part.
Published under the original design's own licence; the licence text is unmodified.
Everything published here is the publisher’s own measurement of a legally acquired, off-the-shelf commercial unit. Qatoto does not host manufacturer-internal documents and makes no clearance assessment of its own.
Report an IP concern about this teardown
Publisher attested on Jun 2, 2026 that the unit was lawfully obtained, that the data was gathered by measurement and standard disassembly, and that no vendor-confidential material was used.
- Difficulty
- Intermediate
- CAD format
- KiCad 8 / Gerber
- Bill of materials
- $18.50 – $24
- Parts
- 62
Materials and composition
Every designation below carries how the publisher arrived at it. A material named from a datasheet or a supplier is not the same claim as one measured off this unit.
Soft grey two-part silicone, unbranded
Gate-driver potting compound · Elastomer
Publisher's own description · declared, not measured
Cast
Simulation
- Factor of safety
- 1.9 ×
- Peak von Mises
- 41.5 MPa
- Max displacement
- 95 µm
- Thermal delta
- 54 K
- Rated load
- 35 N
Author-reported figures from their own analysis or test rig. Nothing on this page computed them.
- What the driver has to surviveStall current, the supply rail it actually sees on a long cable run, and the two failures that follow from getting either wrong.
- Choosing the gate driverWhy the obvious part is the one nobody stocks locally, and what the substitution table trades away.
- Current sense and the shunt placementLow-side sensing, the ground bounce it introduces, and the layout that keeps it measurable.
- What to check before you order boardsThe three footprints worth re-reading against the datasheet, and the one clearance that fails a cheap fab.
Walkthrough
Documents
Driver schematic and layout notes
Schematic · 1.1 KB · 2 pages
Manufacturing files
What a machine shop or a board house builds from.
Electronics
Top copper
Gerber · 129 B
Plated through-holes
Drill · 104 B
Pick and place, top side
Pick and place · 139 B
Bill of materials, 22 line items
Bill of materials (CSV) · 195 B
Getting it made
Qatoto lists factories by capability and certification and carries an inquiry to them. Nothing here is a quote, and a factory will ask for your own files.
Browse the factory directory- motors
- bldc
- sourcing
- power-electronics
Discussion
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