We are excited to introduce encoders with JST PH-type connectors for our 20D mm metal gearmotors, available in two versions to better satisfy different application constraints:

• Magnetic Encoder Pair Kit with Top-Entry Connector for 20D mm Metal Gearmotors, 12 CPR, 2.7-18V
• Magnetic Encoder Pair Kit with Side-Entry Connector for 20D mm Metal Gearmotors, 12 CPR, 2.7-18V

Magnetic Encoder with Top-Entry Connector assembled on a 20D mm Metal Gearmotor with Extended Motor Shaft (JST PH cable not included).	Magnetic Encoder with Side-Entry Connector assembled on a 20D mm Metal Gearmotor with Extended Motor Shaft (JST PH cable not included).

The top-entry connector allows the cable to come straight out the back, keeping things compactly in-line with the motor, while the side-entry connector is good for applications where there isn’t much space past the rear of the motor. We are also continuing to offer our original encoder board with through-holes, which allows wires to be soldered to the board for especially compact installations.

With these new encoders, you just have to solder the board to the two motor tabs, put the magnetic disc on the backshaft, and plug in your cable! And our just-released JST PH cables give you plenty of options to choose from:

JST PH-Style Cable, 6-Pin, Female-Female, 16cm.

JST PH-Style Cable with Female Pins for 0.1" Housings, 6-Pin, 12cm.

	JST PH-Style 6-Pin Cables
	Pins	Terminations	Length	Item #	Price
	6	double-sided (JST PH to JST PH)	10 cm (4″)	#5643	$3.23
			16 cm (6.3″)	#5644	$3.56
			25 cm (10″)	#5645	$4.04
			40 cm (16″)	#5646	$4.85
			63 cm (25″)	#5647	$6.08
		single-sided (JST PH to 0.1″ crimp pins)	12 cm (4.5″)	#5640	$3.34
			30 cm (12″)	#5641	$4.31
			75 cm (30″)	#5642	$6.73

The double-sided cables can be used with our new JST PH-style connector breakout boards, which are also available in top-entry and side-entry versions.

Breakout for JST PH-Style Connector, 6-Pin Male Top-Entry, with SH.

Breakout for JST PH-Style Connector, 6-Pin Male Side-Entry, with SH.

Introductory special discount! Use coupon code 20DENCINTRO to get some of these new encoders for just $6.95 per pair.

Related products

	Magnetic Encoder Pair Kit for 20D mm Metal Gearmotors, 20 CPR, 2.7-18V
	Magnetic Encoder Pair Kit with Side-Entry Connector for 20D mm Metal Gearmotors, 20 CPR, 2.7-18V
	Magnetic Encoder Pair Kit with Top-Entry Connector for 20D mm Metal Gearmotors, 20 CPR, 2.7-18V

We are having a Labor Day sale through Tuesday, September 2! Check out the sale page for more information. Please note that we will be closed Monday, so orders placed after 2 PM Pacific Time Friday, August 29 will be shipped on Tuesday, September 2.

We just released our D24V7Fx step-down voltage regulator family of basic buck regulators, which generate lower voltages from input voltages as high as 36 V while supporting maximum continuous output currents of 600 mA across all combinations of input and output voltages. Because they are switching regulators, they are much more efficient than linear voltage regulators, especially when the difference between the input and output voltage is large. This family includes six versions with fixed output voltages ranging from 3.3 V to 12 V:

We manufacture these boards in-house at our Las Vegas facility, so if one of the stock voltages doesn’t fit your needs, we can customize these regulators to output other voltages. If you are interested in customization, please contact us for a quote.

The main distinguishing feature of this regulator is its small size and low cost. At just $2.75 in single-unit quantities, it is our lowest-price regulator yet! We were able to achieve this by having one of our high school summer interns do the board design:

High-school summer intern routing the D24V7Fx regulator PCB, July 2025.

I’m kidding about that making the price lower, of course. Our engineers still went over everything, and unlike some competing products you might encounter, we provide detailed performance data such as the quiescent current characteristics:

Also, each production unit is fully automatically optically inspected and tested. We have been putting a lot of effort into automating our testing and packaging, and that is the real key to being able to offer these low prices. More behind-the-scenes information on the robots making our products coming soon!

Introductory special discount! Use coupon code D24V7FXINTRO to try out these new regulators for just $2.22 each.

Related products

	12V, 600mA Step-Down Voltage Regulator D24V7F12
	9V, 600mA Step-Down Voltage Regulator D24V7F9
	7.5V, 600mA Step-Down Voltage Regulator D24V7F7
	6V, 600mA Step-Down Voltage Regulator D24V7F6
	5V, 600mA Step-Down Voltage Regulator D24V7F5
	3.3V, 600mA Step-Down Voltage Regulator D24V7F3

Yes, you read that right: brushless! We’re excited to finally announce our A89301-Based Sensorless Brushless Motor Controller, 50V, 11A, our first board designed to control a brushless DC motor.

Pololu has never offered any BLDC motor drivers or controllers until now (we’ve had stepper motor drivers for a long time, but that’s typically not what people mean when they ask for a brushless motor driver), and I think it’s easier to appreciate some of our reasons for this if you look into their principles of operation.

A brushed DC motor can easily be driven with a simple direct current produced from a constant voltage, and its speed can be controlled by varying that voltage proportionally (or by using PWM, which effectively produces a lower average voltage). This is because it has a commutator and some contacts, or “brushes”, that switch the direction of the current in the windings as they rotate inside a fixed magnetic field, and that maintains a steady torque on the motor shaft to keep it spinning. Consequently, the simplest brushed DC motor drivers are not much more than amplifiers that turn low-voltage, low-current control signals into higher power outputs capable of driving a motor.

By contrast, the construction of a brushless DC motor is relatively simple. The coils are located on the fixed part of the motor (stator) and are directly connected to the motor’s terminals, and the magnets are on the rotating part (rotor) instead. Eliminating the brushes and commutator accounts for some of the advantages of brushless motors, including higher efficiency (partly due to less friction) and longer lifetimes (fewer parts to wear out) compared to brushed motors. The trade-off for this reduced mechanical complexity is increased control complexity: something else now has to switch the coil currents appropriately to maintain a steady torque on the rotor, and that is the responsibility of the brushless motor driver.

A pair of disassembled DC motors. Brushed motor (left): end cap with brushes, rotor with coils and commutator, case with fixed magnets. Brushless outrunner motor (right): rotor with magnets and case, stator with coils.

In order to produce torque, a motor’s windings must generate magnetic forces tangential to the axis of rotation. (I saw an analogy that compares this to using a wrench: you can torque a bolt by applying a tangential force to the wrench handle, but pushing or pulling on the wrench parallel to the handle doesn’t do anything useful.) Since a brushless motor’s magnets rotate, the fixed coils’ magnetic fields must also rotate to keep acting on the rotor tangentially, and this means the coils need to be energized in a rotating sequence.

The simplest way to do this is with an open-loop technique that simply drives the brushless motor using a sequence with fixed timing. However, for better reliability and efficiency, it is helpful to know the actual position of the rotor so that the timing of the sequence can be adjusted accordingly. There are two approaches to doing this, each with their own upsides and downsides: sensored control relies on a position sensor in the motor (like an encoder) to directly measure its position, while sensorless control uses the back-EMF (electromotive force) induced on the coils by the motor’s rotation to calculate its position.

I hope this brief overview conveys some of the additional considerations that are involved in making a brushless DC motor control system. This complexity, and the wide range of electronic parts released by various manufacturers to address it, means that it’s been hard for us to decide on a direction to take when it came to trying to design our own brushless driver or controller. Another factor was that we don’t sell any brushless motors (yet), which made it kind of a chicken-and-egg problem: does it make sense for us to develop a brushless driver when we have no brushless motors, and does it make sense for us to source brushless motors to sell when we have nothing to drive them?

Of course, to resolve that dilemma, you have to start with one or the other, and Allegro offering development support for their A89301 brushless DC gate driver IC made it an easy decision for us to move forward with a board for it. Our A89301-Based Sensorless Brushless Motor Controller, 50V, 11A combines the A89301 with external MOSFETs to enable sensorless control of 3-phase BLDC motors at voltages from 5.5 V to 48 V and with phase currents up to 11 A. The A89301 uses a fully-integrated field-oriented control (FOC) algorithm that computes the exact position of the rotor so that the coil currents can be controlled accordingly, optimizing torque and efficiency. It accepts speed inputs via analog voltage, PWM duty cycle, pulse frequency, or I²C signals to simplify the process of getting a brushless motor running without having to write your own complex low-level motor control code. We offer versions with soldered header pins and terminal blocks or without through-hole connectors.

Introductory special discount! Use coupon code A89301INTRO to get either version for $19.95 each.

To make use of all of the A89301 IC’s features and settings, including lock (stall) detection and multiple motor startup options, it needs to be configured through I²C. Our board’s 4-pin I²C connector (Qwiic and STEMMA QT compatible) makes it easy to connect it to one of our USB-to-I²C Adapters and use the Pololu A89301 Configuration Utility software for Windows (based on Allegro’s own evaluation board software) to interface with the A89301.

The Pololu A89301 Configuration Utility software.

An A89301-Based Sensorless Brushless Motor Controller connected to a computer with a Pololu Isolated USB-to-I²C Adapter (IOREF shorted to 2V8).

This is our first brushless motor control solution, and we definitely don’t intend it to be our last. While we have plans for other products, we’re also interested in hearing from you: What are you looking for in a BLDC motor system? What kinds of brushless motors, drivers, and controllers would you like to see us offer?

Related products

	A89301-Based Sensorless Brushless Motor Controller, 50V, 11A (Soldered Connectors)
	A89301-Based Sensorless Brushless Motor Controller, 50V, 11A

We have released a series of breakout boards for our new JST SH-type cables that serve as adapters between these cables and breadboard-compatible 0.1″ through-holes. The new boards are available in pin counts from 2 through 5 and in top-entry and side-entry variations. We also have existing 6-pin versions that we originally released as accessories for our micro metal gearmotor encoders, so the through-holes are labeled on the silkscreen according to the pins they would map to on our encoders, but these can also be used as general-purpose breakout boards for our 6-pin cables. Here’s the full selection:

Top entry	Side entry
2-pin
3-pin
4-pin
5-pin
6-pin

We are having an Independence Day sale starting now through Monday, July 7! Check out the sale page for more information. Please note that we will be closed Friday, July 4 in observance Independence Day, so orders placed after 2 PM Pacific Time Thursday, July 3 will be shipped on Monday, July 7.

You may have noticed several of our newer boards have JST SH-style connectors on them, from 2 pins on these micro metal gearmotor connector boards to 3 pins on these digital distance sensors to 4 pins on these contactless current sensor carriers and several I2C products including our USB-to-I2C adapters. We now have a series of compatible JST SH-style female cables to go with them. We are stocking them in a variety of lengths, pin counts, and termination styles, making 40 new cables in all to choose from!

	Pins	Terminations	Length	Item #
	1×2	double-sided (female-female)	10 cm (4″)	#5503
			16 cm (6.3″)	#5504
			25 cm (10″)	#5505
			40 cm (16″)	#5506
			63 cm (25″)	#5507
		single-sided (female- unterminated)	12 cm (4.5″)	#5500
			30 cm (12″)	#5501
			75 cm (30″)	#5502

	Pins	Terminations	Length	Item #
	1×3	double-sided (female-female)	10 cm (4″)	#5513
			16 cm (6.3″)	#5514
			25 cm (10″)	#5515
			40 cm (16″)	#5516
			63 cm (25″)	#5517
		single-sided (female- unterminated)	12 cm (4.5″)	#5510
			30 cm (12″)	#5511
			75 cm (30″)	#5512

	Pins	Terminations	Length	Item #
	1×4	double-sided (female-female)	10 cm (4″)	#5523
			16 cm (6.3″)	#5524
			25 cm (10″)	#5525
			40 cm (16″)	#5526
			63 cm (25″)	#5527
		single-sided (female- unterminated)	12 cm (4.5″)	#5520
			30 cm (12″)	#5521
			75 cm (30″)	#5522

	Pins	Terminations	Length	Item #
	1×5	double-sided (female-female)	10 cm (4″)	#5533
			16 cm (6.3″)	#5534
			25 cm (10″)	#5535
			40 cm (16″)	#5536
			63 cm (25″)	#5537
		single-sided (female- unterminated)	12 cm (4.5″)	#5530
			30 cm (12″)	#5531
			75 cm (30″)	#5532

	Pins	Terminations	Length	Item #
	1×6	double-sided (female-female)	10 cm (4″)	#5543
			16 cm (6.3″)	#5544
			25 cm (10″)	#5545
			40 cm (16″)	#5546
			63 cm (25″)	#5547
		single-sided (female- unterminated)	12 cm (4.5″)	#5540
			30 cm (12″)	#5541
			75 cm (30″)	#5542

The JST SH-style connector has a 1 mm pitch, making it a good choice for small modules, and the wires are 28 AWG. The double-sided cables have twisted wires and female connectors on both ends, while the single-sided versions have a connector on one end and unterminated wires on the other. The single-ended versions can easily be cut to shorter if desired, and remember that you can also cut the double-sided cables in half to get single-sided cables that are 5 cm, 8 cm, and 20 cm long.

The 4-pin versions are compatible with SparkFun’s Qwiic and Adafruit’s STEMMA QT.

We’ve had 6-pin cables for our Micro Metal Gearmotor encoders for years, but with this new line of cables, we’re offering a 6-pin version that matches the standardized color order, with black always corresponding to pin 1 and red always corresponding to pin 2. For reference, here is our selection of those original 6-pin cables, which have the green wire on pin 1:

	Pins	Terminations	Length	Item #
	1×6	double-sided (female-female)	10 cm (4″)	#4765
			16 cm (6.3″)	#4766
			25 cm (10″)	#4767
			40 cm (16″)	#4768
			63 cm (25″)	#4769
		single-sided (female- unterminated)	12 cm (4.5″)	#4762
			30 cm (12″)	#4763
			75 cm (30″)	#4764

What new products would you like to see with connectors for these cables?

We’re having a big Memorial Day Sale that includes over 1000 products from robots to regulators to sensors to motors, and more! Check out the sale page for more information. Please note that we will be closed Monday, so orders placed after 2 PM Pacific Time Friday, May 23 will be shipped on Tuesday, May 27.

Last week, 7th-grade robotics team ‘Lightning Strikes Twice!’ (LS2!) from Aspen Middle School in Colorado joined 160 teams from 66 countries to compete in the FIRST LEGO League Challenge World Festival held in Houston, Texas. It was their first time qualifying after winning multiple first-place awards at an event in Fort Collins, Colorado last November, and second place at the Colorado State Championship in December.

LS2! designed an autonomous turtle robot to conduct coral reef research, which uses LEGO electronics and pieces to control the flipper mechanism. Pololu supported the team with laser-cut plywood pieces for mounting the paddles and acrylic pieces for the tail and watertight body with gasketed openings.

Turtle robot SHELTN2 submerged in a swimming pool.

Working with Pololu was great. The parts arrived quickly and were very well packed. I suggested the students leave 3 mm of clearance around the LEGO structure to account for tolerance in the laser cutting and assembly but the parts were very accurate so we could have made it tighter. We used a combination of Weld-On 4 and 16 to glue the acrylic. The most challenging part was designing for the rubber shift boots we used to seal the joints while allowing movement. SHELTN’s total weight was approximately 7 kg plus 6 kg of ballast to achieve neutral buoyancy.

- William Gilmore, Mentor, Lightning Strikes Twice!

You can read more about the FIRST Championship in Houston in this FIRST press release, and visit the FIRST LEGO League blog for a full list of challenge and division award recipients.

We’re proud that parts from our Custom Laser Cutting Service helped LS2! bring their design to life and excel through their competition. Congrats to Lightning Strikes Twice! on all of their achievements!

Related products

Custom Laser Cutting Service

We’re happy to announce our new Isolated Solid State Relay/Switch boards! These modules function as solid state, single-pole, single-throw (SPST) relays or switches that can be controlled by low-current signals between 2.7 V and 40 V. The control signal activates an optically coupled driver that turns on a pair of output MOSFETs, which keeps the outputs electrically isolated from the input side. The MOSFETs are arranged back-to-back to make the outputs symmetric and bidirectional (so the board can be used as a high-side or low-side switch).

These boards make good replacements for mechanical relays in many situations, since their semiconductor-based design allows them to avoid problems like contact wear and arcing that limit the service life of mechanical relays. They are also silent and generally much smaller than a typical mechanical relay with a comparable current rating. Two versions of the solid state relay/switch are available with different voltage and current capabilities:

• Pololu Isolated Solid State Relay/Switch, SPST, 30V, 11A
• Pololu Isolated Solid State Relay/Switch, SPST, 60V, 7A

Three-wire and two-wire (with EN and VIN tied together) control options for the Pololu Isolated Solid State Relay/Switch, SPST.

Introductory special discount! Use coupon code SSRELAYINTRO to get either version for $3.50 each.

Related products

	Pololu Isolated Solid State Relay/Switch, SPST, 30V, 11A
	Pololu Isolated Solid State Relay/Switch, SPST, 60V, 7A