Christie Digital Motor Controller Selection

Christie Digital Systems Inc. (Christie) has established a global reputation as the world’s single source manufacturer of a variety of display technologies and solutions for cinema, large audience environments, business presentations, simulation, 3D and virtual reality. The company has a wide global presence that includes manufacturing facilities in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada. The Kitchener branch houses the Business Products Sustaining Department. The teams in this department handle projects related to the company’s business products, such as projectors and integrated projection systems, and are responsible for maintaining current product lines as well as designing new business projection solutions. The Sustaining team is directly responsible for resolving problems related to products currently on the market, which includes dealing with components that are approaching obsolescence. For example, the dynamic iris shown in Figure 1, is a projector component that restricts the amount of light used to project images according to specific brightness and contrast requirements. The Allegro A3936 motor controller used in Christie Digital products to control 3-phase brushless DC motors in dynamic iris applications is expected to become obsolete. Therefore, an alternate component must be selected and tested to suit this application.

Tim Boyadjian, a co-op student from the University of Waterloo, was asked to investigate alternative components to replace this component.